RE: firewall cluster

["Murda Mcloud" <murdamcloud () bigpond com>]

I'd balance the security of variety against the issues of misconfiguring
something because of the difference. Do you have one person who know each
system really well or someone who knows both?

-----Original Message-----
From: listbounce () securityfocus com [mailto:listbounce () securityfocus com] On
Behalf Of sandra
Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 8:18 PM
To: security-basics () securityfocus com
Subject: firewall cluster

Hello,

We want to set up a cluster of two firewalls with heartbeat. It will be an
active-passive 
cluster, so if main firewall fails, secondary firewall would become active.
We think that, although they are a cluster, they should have different
Operating Systems 
(for example linux and BSD), so if a vulnerability has impact in our main
firewall and 
drops it, the second firewall will start to serve without the same
vulnerability affecting it.
Do you think is a good idea or is better to have two identical firewalls for
compatibility 
issues?
Which combination of Operating Systems do you recommend?
Thanks,

Sandra