[OT ish] Router vs Firewall - corporate environment

[martin <martiniscool () gmail com>]

Hi all

We're in the process of planning to split up our corporate network -
ie, a subnet for servers, one for users, one for admins etc etc.
Although we have over 200 users, our internet connection is not at
this office, it goes over a WAN to another office and then via a proxy
(which is duly firewalled etc).  We have a cisco router at our site
which handles the WAN traffic etc.

Now a debate has started over whether we should use the router to
split up our network, or whether we should go to the extra expense of
buying a firewall to do this.  As I understand it, if I send a request
from subnet 1 to subnet 2 on port 80, the source port (is over 1024)
would have to be open for the reply to come back from subnet 2 to
subnet 1.  However, as firewalls are stateful, they do not require
this - I would just need to open port 80 to subnet 2.

Apart from the greater logging capabilities, this is the only reason I
can come up with to use a firewall.  Does anybody have any additional
suggestions as to why we should use a firewall ?  Or likewise, why a
firewall might not be necessary.

Thanks in advance for any help

M

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