Power, speed, and new capabilities make the Cisco FWSM the firewall of choice for large sites.

Cisco IT evaluated different stateful inspection firewall solutions, looking for one that would support multicast and emerging dynamic applications. The IT group chose the Cisco Firewall Service Module (FWSM) for large Cisco sites that provide both Internet and VPN connectivity. Smaller Internet connectivity sites would continue to use Cisco PIX security appliances.

This security and VPN case study describes Cisco IT’s migration from stateless access control lists (ACLs) to the FWSM and the benefits of the deployment, including:

  • The ability to pass multicast traffic through the firewall
  • The ability to use Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP) with the firewall
  • Enhanced performance with FWSM aggregate throughput of 5 Gbps
  • Improved security by utilizing dynamic port applications that reduce the number of ports open at any one time

Read the Enterprise Firewall Protection Case Study