Re: Cisco ASA and FWSM

["Douglas C. Stephens" <stephens () ameslab gov>]

There is also a difference in performance and price.  The ASA 5500 line are external
standalone devices with, for the most part, the capabilities of a VPN 3000 concentrator
built-in.  The packet throughput is about what you'd expect from a standalone device with
Gig-E interfaces, say around 600 Mb/s.  Also, the CPU engine in the ASA 5500 series is
faster than what you find in a PIX.

An FWSM on the other hand is, as has been said, an ASA on a blade.  These don't generally
come with VPN concentrator capabilities.  However, they can take about 5.5 Gb/s of
aggregated throughput in 1 Gb/s streams.  Part of this enhanced performance comes from
the fact that they hook directly into the backplane of a Cisco 6500 switch.  I believe
a Sup720 supervisor is also required.


At 05:00 PM 4/25/2007, Avishai Wool wrote:
> AFAIK the FWSM is essentially a PIX 7.x that is stuck inside a
> catalyst switch chassis. and an ASA is a PIX 7.x that is
> bundled with some other (non-firewall) security functions .
>
> the configuration language was 99.9% compatible between the ASA
> and the FWSM, at least as of PIX 7.0. I'm not sure if Cisco kept the
> code-bases evolving in sync - there were a few months in which FWSM was
> shipping but PIX 7.0 was not released yet...
>
> In my opinion, the main differences are "form factor" and pricing. If
> all you need
> is a firewall then you don't care about the other things the ASA may do.
> If you already have a Catalyst with an empty expansion bay - it may
> be convenient to get a FWSM (e.g. less rack-space).
>
> HTH,
>  Avishai
>
> On 4/13/07, Kimberly Fields <kimberlymfields () gmail com> wrote:
> > Can anyone tell me what, if any, are the differences between the Cisco ASA
> > firewall features and the Cisco FWSM firewall features?
> >
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>
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> Avishai Wool, Ph.D.,      Cell: +972-52-333-0052
>      Co-founder and Chief Technical Officer
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--
Douglas C. Stephens             | Network/DNS/Unix/Windows Administrator
System Support Specialist       | Postmaster / Webmaster
Information Systems             | Phone: (515) 294-6102
Ames Laboratory, US DOE         | Email: stephens () ameslab gov

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