Hardware vs. Software firewall reliability

[Bill Stout <Bill.Stout () AristaSoft com>]

I notice that more firewalls are of the hardware type.  It seems that over
time the hardware firewalls have become more robust, and with the minimal
configuration involved, lack of mechanical devices (disks) and underlying OS
to fiddle with, seem to have higher MTBF ratings than software firewalls.
Seems that many on the list have predicted the rise of the hardware firewall
and 'death' of the software firewall.

What is the current feel of hardware vs. software firewalls?

My specific interest is in protecting Internet service bureaus, with a
limited set of published applications.  Therefore outbound proxies are not
as critical.

BTW - Are there failover hardware firewalls available?

Bill Stout

Unresolved industry-wide date bugs:
-- Incompatible Julian date formats and translation logic remain in 'Y2K
ready' systems (enter 1/1/29 and 1/1/30 in Excel) MS=YYDDD, JDE=CYYDDD,
Oracle=YYYYDDD, etc
-- Think of the impact of dynamically changing OS date (Don't do this on a
server).  Open DOS window in 'Windows', type 'date /t', double-click clock
on taskbar, browse date (don't apply), type 'date /t' in DOS window, cancel
'date/time properties' to restore.