The Firewall Management Center provides a centralized firewall management console. For device compatibility with the Firewall Management Center, see Firewall Threat Defense Management. For general compatibility information, see the Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center Compatibility Guide.

Firewall Management Center Hardware

Version 7.2 supports the following Firewall Management Center hardware:

• Firepower Management Center 1600

• Firepower Management Center 2600

• Firepower Management Center 4600

You should also keep the BIOS and RAID controller firmware up to date; see the Secure Firewall Threat Defense/Firepower hotfix release notes.

Firewall Management Center Virtual

Version 7.2 supports Firewall Management Center Virtual deployments in both public and private clouds.

With the Firewall Management Center Virtual, you can purchase a license to manage 2, 10, or 25 devices. Some platforms support 300 devices. Note that two-device licenses do not support Firewall Management Center high availability. For full details on supported instances, see the Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center Virtual Getting Started Guide.

Cloud-Delivered Firewall Management Center

For up-to-date compatibility information, see the Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center Compatibility Guide.

Threat defense devices monitor network traffic and decide whether to allow or block specific traffic based on a defined set of security rules. For details on device management methods, see Firewall Threat Defense Management. For general compatibility information, see the Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense Compatibility Guide.

Firewall Threat Defense Hardware

Version 7.2 Firewall Threat Defense hardware comes in a range of throughputs, scalability capabilities, and form factors.

Firewall Threat Defense Virtual

Version 7.2 Firewall Threat Defense Virtual implementations support performance-tiered Smart Software Licensing, based on throughput requirements and remote access VPN session limits. Options run from FTDv5 (100 Mbps/50 sessions) to FTDv100 (16 Gbps/10,000 sessions). For more information on supported instances, throughputs, and other hosting requirements, see the appropriate Getting Started Guide.

Depending on device model and version, we support the following management methods.

On-Prem Firewall Management Center

All devices support remote management with a customer-deployed (on-prem) Firewall Management Center.

Versions are major (A.x), maintenance (A.x.y), or patch (A.x.y.z). The Firewall Management Center should run the same or newer version as its devices. New features and resolved issues often require the latest version on both the Firewall Management Center and its devices. Upgrade the Firewall Management Center first—you will still be able to manage older devices, usually a few major versions back.

Note	You cannot upgrade a device past the Firewall Management Center to a newer major or maintenance version. Although a patched device (fourth-digit) can be managed with an unpatched Firewall Management Center, fully patched deployments undergo enhanced testing.

Note that in most cases you can upgrade an older device directly to the Firewall Management Center's major or maintenance version. However, sometimes you can manage an older device that you cannot directly upgrade, even though the target version is supported on the device. Rarely, there are issues with specific Firewall Management Center-device combinations. For release-specific requirements, see the release notes.

Table 4. On-Prem Firewall Management Center-Device Compatibility

Firewall Management Center Version	Oldest Device Version You Can Manage
10.x	7.3
7.7	7.2
7.6	7.1
7.4 Last support for NGIPS device management.	7.0
7.3	6.7
7.2	6.6
7.1	6.5
7.0	6.4
6.7	6.3
6.6	6.2.3
6.4	6.1
6.2.3	6.1

Cloud-Delivered Firewall Management Center

For Firewall Threat Defense compatibility with Cloud-Delivered Firewall Management Center, see the Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense Compatibility Guide.