Cisco is a long-time leader in delivering cutting-edge firewall appliances for the widest possible range of deployments. Cisco's Firepower NGFWs Firewalls provide an advanced cybersecurity solution that marshals dedicated hardware, cloud services, and next-generation intrusion protection system (NGIPS) to anticipate, identify, and respond to threats automatically. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE firewall experts can help your organization to plan and execute an efficient upgrade to Cisco Firepower Series firewalls from Cisco's from ASA 5500-X, ASA 5500, or PIX appliances and show you how to enhance Firepower firewalls with Cisco's cloud-based services to create and centrally manage network environments that include local offices, data centers, private clouds and public clouds. Progent can also assist you to maintain and troubleshoot older-generation Cisco security appliances. Progent's certified network security consultants can assist you with policy creation and tuning based on leading best practices so you can build a consistent security posture across all your networked endpoints anywhere.

Cisco's Firepower Next Generation Firewall Appliances
Cisco's Firepower NGFWs Firewalls deliver a major performance boost over Cisco's previous-generation ASA 5500-X firewalls and include centralized management of modern cybersecurity features such as application visibility and control, next-generation intrusion protection with risk prioritization, advanced malware protection, distributed denial of service (DDoS) mitigation, and multi-node sandboxing. For more information about Cisco's Firepower portfolio of Next Generation Firewalls (NGFWs), refer to Firepower firewalls integration experts.

Cisco Firepower 4100 Series Firewalls Consulting

Cisco's ASA 5500-X Series and Legacy Firewalls
Cisco's ASA 5500-X Series, ASA 5500 Series, and PIX 500 firewalls offer combined firewall, IPsec VPN, and intrusion prevention system capabilities in single-box packages, delivering a wide range of features to match the security needs of companies ranging from small businesses to enterprises and Internet service providers. Cisco's ASA 5500-X, ASA 5500, and PIX firewall appliances enable network security teams to protect their network edge and offer secure remote access while utilizing powerful management mechanisms based on Cisco's world-class firewall technology.

Cisco's ASA 5500 and PIX firewalls have reached end-of-life but remain widely deployed in smaller organizations as well as in a few enterprise networks. The ASA 5500-X Series Next-Generation Firewalls deliver significantly more value and have supplanted Cisco's ASA 5500 and PIX 500 lines of firewalls for new installations. Still, Cisco's legacy firewall appliances, if properly maintained, continue to deliver a high degree of protection by supplying multiple features such as stateful firewall, IPsec VPN, and IPS.

Since Cisco's purchase of Sourcefire, the whole line of ASA 5500-X firewalls can be configured to support Firepower Services, based on Sourcefire's Snort product, which is the market's most popular network intrusion protection system. Firepower services bring powerful new features such as advanced malware protection (AMP), URL filtering, dynamic threat analytics, and automation.

Progent's Cisco-premier infrastructure engineers can help you to maintain and debug legacy ASA 5500 Series and PIX 500 firewall appliances and can also assist you to design and implement an efficient migration to Cisco's ASA 5500-X firewalls with Firepower Services. Progent can also assist you to plan, configure, optimize, manage and troubleshoot new firewall ecosystems built on Cisco's current ASA 5500-X firewalls with Firepower Services. Progent's firewall consultants can also help you to migrate from your Cisco ASA 5500-X Series deployment to Cisco's latest Firepower Next Generation Firewalls.

Cisco's ASA 5500-X Series Firewalls
Cisco's comprehensive line of ASA 5500-X security appliances features an enhanced substitute for every rack-mountable model in the previous ASA 5500 line of firewalls. Each ASA 5500-X firewall targets the same environment as the corresponding earlier models, which offers most ample choice for selecting a firewall that aligns with their security requirements and IT budgets. All ASA 5500-X products are based on Cisco's tested stateful-inspection firewall technology and all include 64-bit hardware with multicore CPUs and are capable of running Cisco's advanced protection services. All devices in Cisco's ASA 5500-X product line deliver dependable protection across any combination of physical, virtual, and cloud deployments.

Cisco ASA 5500-X Firepower Consultants

For more information about ASA 5500-X security appliances, Firepower services, and Progent's support for Cisco ASA 5500-X firewalls, see Firepower integration and debugging expertise

Cisco's Firepower Services for ASA 5500-X Firewalls
Cisco ASA 5500-X firewalls work with software or hardware modules that enable Cisco's Firepower Services, which offer layered defense against sophisticated threats. Firepower Services are powered by innovative technology adopted by Cisco from Sourcefire. Major features of Firepower Services for ASA firewalls include:

  • Layered defense against both familiar and new attacks
  • Cisco's Advanced Malware Protection that utilizes big data techniques to discover and remediate security breaches
  • A Next-Generation Intrusion Prevention System that provides contextual analysis that covers users, network infrastructure, software applications, and content to discover attacks that use simultaneous vectors
  • High-resolution Application Visibility and Control (AVC that is familiar with thousands of apps and can automatically launch both standard and custom IPS policies based on the severity of threats
Cisco Firepower Configuration Consultants

Firepower Services for ASA 5500-X firewalls provide multi-layered security

Smaller implementations of Cisco ASA 5500-X firewalls can be effectively managed using Cisco's on-device Adaptive Security Device Manager (ASDM) Adaptive Security Device Manager, a web-based tool included with all ASA 5500-X models. ASDM provides a simple web dashboard for configuring, managing, and troubleshooting ASA 5500-X firewalls and service modules.

For more complex deployments, ASA 5500-X appliances with Firepower can be administered with Cisco's Firepower Management Center, available as one or several physical or virtual appliances. Cisco's Firepower Management Center offers centralized firewall management, Application Visibility and Control (AVC, enhanced IPS, URL filtering, and Cisco's Advanced Malware Protection (AMP). Due to ongoing rebranding since Cisco's purchase of Sourcefire Defense Center, Cisco's Firepower Management Center has been delivered under several names that include Defense Center, Cisco Firesight Defense Center, and Cisco Firesight Management Center.

Firepower Management Center Consulting

Firepower Management Center unifies event and policy management for Firepower firewall appliances

Cisco's Firepower Management Center provides features unavailable with Cisco's on-box ASDM utility. Extra features include greater context awareness, Advanced Malware Protection with remediation for user devices, a dashboard that offers real-time network visualization, automated policy tuning driven by risk evaluation of threats, advanced IPS, custom application detectors for Application Visibility and Control (AVC), customized health alerts, improved reporting options, and application interfaces for host input and database access. Hardware-dependent features like clustering, stacking, switching, routing, VPN, and NAT must be handled using either Cisco's ASA 5500-X on-box ASDM or the ASA 5500-X CLI.

Cisco ASA 5500 Firewalls
Cisco ASA 5500 Series Firewalls leverage engineering behind the PIX 500 Series Security Appliance, the Cisco IPS 4200 Intrusion Prevention System, and Cisco's VPN 3000 model concentrator. These solutions enable the Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances Firewall family to deliver a platform that stops the widest variety of threats. Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances (ASA) 5500 Series Firewalls provide application protection, network containment and control, and safe Virtual Private Network functionality across Cisco's product line. This broad scope of security allows the guarding of any network segment, including the most common attack conduits like remote locations, locally-connected inside users, and off-site access Virtual Private Networks.

ASA 5500 Consulting and Troubleshooting
The expandable design of the ASA 5500 family enables you to add services via security service modules (SSMs) and security service cards (SSCs). These easy-to-install options give you the option of adding Intrusion Protection and content protection functions like filtering virus, worms, and phishing attacks and performing data and URL filtering. Beside allowing you to react rapidly to new threat vectors, the extensible design of the ASA 5500 family also protects your hardware investment by prolonging the useful life of your security appliances. The ASA 5500 Series also protects your investment in administrative staff education by supporting the rich set of PIX 500 security management utilities and protocols including the Cisco ASDM platform, protected command-line interface (CLI) access, syslog, and Simple Network Management Protocol.

Cisco ASA firewalls provide a high-level of application protection via intelligent, application-sensitive inspection processes that examine network flows at Layers 4-7. The result is a better protected network including Web, voice, and 3G-mobile wireless access. To defend networks against application-layer assaults and to offer stronger policing of the programs and protocols utilized in their environments, these inspection engines integrate extensive application and protocol knowledgebases and employ protection enforcement solutions such as anomaly sensing and state monitoring. Also incorporated are assault sensing and remediation technology including application and protocol command filters and URL deobfuscation. Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances 5500 Series firewall inspection engines also deliver management of instant messaging and tunneling applications, enabling organizations to enforce usage policies and recover network bandwidth for crucial business processes.

For more information about Progent's consulting services for Cisco's ASA 5500 security appliances, visit Cisco ASA 5500 firewalls configuration and debugging consulting.

Cisco PIX Security Appliance Series
Based upon a tested, specialized operating system that offers rich security features, Cisco PIX firewalls offer excellent protection and have earned Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL) 4 status and ICSA Firewall and IP Security certification. PIX security appliances offer security for a wide range of Voice over IP and other mixed-media conventions such as H.323 Version 4, Session Initiation Protocol, Cisco Skinny Client Control Protocol (SCCP), Real-Time Streaming Protocol, and Media Gateway Control Protocol (MGCP), helping organizations to safeguard deployments of a wide array of contemporary and upcoming IP voice and video applications.

PIX Security Support
Cisco PIX firewall appliances feature a variety of configuration, monitoring, and troubleshooting features, giving businesses the versatility to utilize the methods that best meet their requirements. Management solutions include common, policy-based administration utilities, integrated web-accessible management, and support for remote-monitoring standards like Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) and syslog. The integrated ASDM system provides a world-class Web-accessible control solution that significantly simplifies the deployment, in-place configuration, and monitoring of a specific Cisco PIX firewall appliance without requiring any additional software other than an ordinary Web browser and Java plug-in to be running on a manager's computer.

Administrators can also remotely set up, track, and analyze PIX firewalls via a command-line interface (CLI). Secure CLI interface communication is possible through a number of methods including Secure Shell (SSHv2) Protocol, Telnet through IP Security, and out-of-band via a console port. PIX firewall appliances also have dependable automatic-update capabilities, a collection of advanced secure remote-administration services that make sure that security settings and software images are always current.

For more information about Progent's consulting services for PIX 500 security appliances, see PIX firewalls configuration and troubleshooting support.

Progent's Migration Consulting Services for Cisco Firewalls
Because Cisco has discontinued selling the PIX and ASA 5500 product lines, many businesses are concerned about depending on a key security mechanism that may stop being supported by Cisco. ASA 5500-X and Firepower Series security appliances offer the benefit of being current devices and also offer a number of functions and budgetary benefits in comparison to PIX devices. These advantages include substantially better throughput, optional Secure Sockets Layer VPN support, and a modular architecture that protects your investment by allowing you to self-install new security features whenever you require them. Progent's Cisco experts can help you to assess the strategic case for migrating from PIX 500 or ASA 5500 firewalls, create a migration plan that permits a quick and seamless changeover, assist you to deploy new ASA 5500-x Series or Firepower NGFW Series firewalls, and offer online, consulting, and troubleshooting services.

Additional Ways Progent Can Assist Your Business with Cisco Firewalls
Cisco's Firepower Series, ASA 5500 Series, and PIX security appliances provide an array of setup, monitoring, and troubleshooting options which offer you the flexibility to configure these security appliances to align optimally with your business requirements. Progent's CCIE authorized network consultants can show you how to design an efficient network infrastructure that includes Cisco firewall technology and that offers advanced security, fault tolerance, performance, and recoverability. Progent's CISA and CISSP-ISSP-certified information security professionals can assist you to develop a security policy appropriate for your situation and can set up your PIX or ASA firewall to enforce your security strategy. Progent's security assessment consultants can assess the strength of your current firewall deployment and audit the security of your entire IS network. Progent's Help Desk Call Center can provide urgent remote technical support for Cisco products and offer fast access to a Cisco CCIE expert.

To see additional details concerning Progent's professional expertise for Cisco products, pick a topic:

Integration of Cisco and Third-party Firewall Technology
Progent offers expertise in firewall and VPN products from all major vendors and can help you integrate Cisco technology with additional security solutions to help you build a cost-effective network infrastructure that provides a level of security and flexibility appropriate for your business. Third-party firewall and VPN support services available from Progent include:

If you wish to contact Progent about consulting assistance for Cisco products, call 1-800-993-9400 or refer to Contact Progent.



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