Cisco is a long-time leader in delivering state-of-the-art firewalls for the broadest possible variety of environments. Cisco's Firepower Next Generation Firewalls represent an advanced firewall solution that marshals sophisticated hardware, cloud-based services, and next-generation intrusion protection system (NGIPS) to block, identify, and mitigate threats without manual intervention. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE-certified firewall experts can help your organization to plan and execute a smooth migration to Firepower Series firewalls from Cisco's from ASA 5500-X, ASA 5500, or PIX appliances and show you how to enhance Firepower appliances with Cisco's subscription-based security services to build and centrally manage IT environments that include local offices, data centers, private clouds and public clouds. Progent can also help you to maintain and troubleshoot older-generation Cisco firewalls. Progent's certified network security consultants can help you with policy creation and tuning based on industry best practices in order to build a consistent and effective cybersecurity posture that applies to all your endpoints anywhere.

Cisco's Firepower Next Generation Firewall Appliances
Cisco's Firepower Next Generation Firewalls deliver a major performance boost compared to Cisco's popular ASA 5500-X security appliances and include centralized control of advanced security capabilities such as application visibility and control (AVC), next-generation intrusion protection with risk prioritization, advanced malware protection, URL filtering, and multi-node sandboxing. For details about Cisco's Firepower family of Next Generation Firewalls, refer to Cisco Firepower Series firewalls integration services.

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 firewall appliances provide integrated firewall, IPsec VPN, and IPS services in compact single-box packages, delivering a wide array of features to meet the security requirements of organizations ranging from small businesses to enterprises and ISPs. Cisco's ASA 5500-X, ASA 5500 Series, and PIX firewall appliances enable network security teams to defend their network edge and offer safe remote connectivity while using advanced management tools built on Cisco's world-class firewall products.

Cisco's ASA 5500 Series and PIX 500 firewall appliances have arrived at end-of-life (EOL) status but remain widely deployed in smaller organizations and in a few enterprise data centers. The ASA 5500-X Series Next-Generation Firewalls deliver substantially more value and have supplanted Cisco's ASA 5500 and PIX lines of firewalls for new deployments. However, Cisco's older model firewalls, if carefully maintained, continue to offer a high level of protection by supplying a variety of services such as firewall, Virtual Private Network (VPN) connections, and IPS.

Since Cisco's acquisition of Sourcefire, the whole family of Cisco ASA 5500-X devices can be configured to support Firepower Services, based on Sourcefire's Snort technology, which is the world's most deployed intrusion protection system (IPS). Firepower services bring enhanced capabilities such as advanced malware protection (AMP), URL filtering, real-time threat analytics, and security automation.

Progent's Cisco-premier infrastructure engineers can assist your organization to support and troubleshoot older ASA 5500 and PIX firewall appliances and can also help you to design and carry out an efficient migration to Cisco's ASA 5500-X firewalls with Firepower. Progent can also assist you to design, integrate, optimize, manage and troubleshoot new firewall ecosystems built on Cisco's latest ASA 5500-X firewalls with Firepower Services. Progent can also help your organization to migrate from your Cisco ASA 5500-X deployment to Cisco's latest Firepower NGFWs Firewalls.

Cisco's ASA 5500-X Series Firewalls
Cisco's extensive family of ASA 5500-X security appliances features an improved substitute for each rack-mountable model in the older ASA 5500 generation of devices. Each ASA 5500-X model targets the identical environment as the corresponding earlier models, which gives small and midsize businesses plenty of choice for selecting a solution that meets their security requirements and budgets. All ASA 5500-X products build on Cisco's proven stateful-inspection firewall technology and all include purpose-built 64-bit hardware with multicore processors and support Cisco's powerful protection services. All devices in Cisco's ASA 5500-X product line provide dependable security across any combination of physical, virtual, and cloud deployments.

Cisco ASA 5500-X Firepower Consultants

For additional details about Cisco's ASA 5500-X firewalls, Firepower services, and Progent's consulting for Cisco ASA security appliances, go to Firepower integration and troubleshooting consulting

Firepower Services for ASA 5500-X Firewalls
Cisco ASA 5500-X firewalls accept either software or hardware modules that enable Cisco's Firepower Services, which provide layered defense against sophisticated attacks. Cisco's Firepower Services are based on technology adopted by Cisco from Sourcefire. Key features of Firepower Services for ASA security appliances include:

  • Multi-layer protection against familiar and new attacks
  • Advanced Malware Protection that uses big data techniques to discover and mitigate intrusions
  • Cisco's Next-Generation Intrusion Prevention System (NGIPS) that provides contextual analysis that covers clients, network infrastructure, software applications, and content to detect threats that use simultaneous vectors
  • Fine-grained Application Visibility and Control that is familiar with thousands of apps and can automatically activate standard and custom IPS policies depending on the degree of threats
Cisco Firepower Integration Expertise

Firepower Services for ASA firewalls provide advanced multi-layered security

Smaller implementations of Cisco ASA firewalls can be effectively administered using Cisco's on-device Adaptive Security Device Manager (ASDM) Adaptive Security Device Manager, a web-based tool provided with all ASA 5500-X versions. ASDM includes a convenient web console for deploying, administering, and troubleshooting ASA 5500-X appliances and modules.

For more complex environments, ASA 5500-X firewalls with Firepower Services can be managed using Firepower Management Center, implemented as one or more physical or virtual appliances. Firepower Management Center provides unified firewall management, Application Visibility and Control (AVC, advanced IPS, URL filtering, and Cisco's Advanced Malware Protection (AMP). Due to frequent rebranding after Cisco's purchase of Sourcefire Defense Center, Cisco's Firepower Management Center has been delivered under several names that include Cisco Defense Center, Cisco Firesight Defense Center, and Cisco Firesight Management Center.

Firepower Management Center Experts

Cisco Firepower Management Center centralizes event and policy management for Firepower firewalls

Cisco's Firepower Management Center provides capabilities unavailable with Cisco's on-device Adaptive Security Device Manager utility. Additional capabilities include expanded context awareness, Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) with remediation for user devices, a dashboard that offers dynamic infrastructure visualization, automated policy tuning driven by impact assessment of threats, advanced IPS, custom application detectors for Application Visibility and Control, customized health alerts, improved reporting features, and application interfaces for host input and database access. Hardware-dependent options such as clustering, stacking, switching, routing, VPN, and NAT must be managed via Cisco's ASA 5500-X on-box ASDM or the ASA command line interface.

Cisco ASA 5500 Family of Adaptive Security Appliances
Cisco ASA Firewalls leverage engineering behind Cisco's PIX 500 family Security Appliance, Cisco's IPS 4200 family Intrusion Prevention System, and Cisco's VPN 3000 family concentrator. These solutions enable the Cisco ASA Firewall product line to deliver a platform that defends against the widest range of threats. Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances 5500 Series Firewalls provide program security, network containment and control, and clean Virtual Private Network connectivity throughout the entire product portfolio. This breadth of protection allows defense of any network section, which includes the most typical attack conduits like remote sites, LAN-attached inside users, and off-site access VPNs.

Cisco ASA 5500 Consulting Services and Troubleshooting
The scalable architecture of the ASA 5500 family permits you to add features by installing service modules and security service cards (SSCs). These easy-to-install enhancements give you the ability to add Intrusion Protection and content protection functions like filtering virus, spyware, and phishing assaults and executing file and web screening. Beside allowing your IT staff to react rapidly to the latest risk environments, the extensible architecture of the ASA 5500 family also leverages your hardware investment by increasing the useful life of your security appliances. The Cisco ASA 5500 Series also protects your investment in administrative staff training by utilizing the familiar set of PIX 500 security management tools and protocols such as the Cisco Adaptive Security Device Manager (ASDM) system, protected command-line interface (CLI) availability, verbose syslog, and Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP).

Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances (ASA) 5500 Series firewalls deliver robust application protection through smart, application-aware inspection processes that analyze network flows at Layers 4-7. This produces a safer environment covering Web, voice, and mobile wireless connectivity. To protect against application-layer assaults and to offer better policing of the programs and protocols utilized in their environments, these inspection engines incorporate extensive application and protocol knowledgebases and employ security enforcement solutions such as protocol anomaly sensing and state monitoring. Also incorporated are assault detection and remediation technology including application/protocol command filtering and content verification. Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances (ASA) 5500 Series firewall inspection engines also provide control over IM and tunneling applications, allowing organizations to police usage policies and preserve bandwidth for critical business applications.

For additional information about Progent's consulting services for Cisco's ASA 5500 security appliances, go to ASA 5500 firewalls integration and troubleshooting consulting.

PIX Security Appliance Series
Based around a hardened, specialized software platform that offers rich protection features, PIX security appliances provide a high level of security and have received Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level 4 status and ICSA Labs Firewall and IP Security (IPsec) qualification. Cisco PIX firewalls offer security for a wide array of Voice over IP and other multimedia standards such as H.323 Version 4, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), Cisco Skinny Client Control Protocol (SCCP), RTSP, and Media Gateway Control Protocol (MGCP), helping organizations to safeguard installations of a wide range of contemporary and next-generation IP voice and mixed-media applications.

PIX Firewalls Support
PIX firewall appliances feature a variety of configuration, monitoring, and troubleshooting options, providing IT managers the flexibility to utilize the techniques that best meet their needs. Administrative solutions include common, policy-based management utilities, integrated web-based administration, and compatibility with remote-tracking protocols like Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) and syslog. The integrated Cisco Adaptive Security Device Manager (ASDM) system offers a powerful Web-based management platform that greatly streamlines the deployment, in-place modification, and monitoring of a specific Cisco PIX firewall without the need of any extra utility beyond an ordinary Web browser and Java plug-in to be running on an administrator's PC.

Administrators can furthermore remotely set up, monitor, and troubleshoot Cisco PIX security appliances using a CLI interface. Secure command-line interface access is available using a number of methods such as SSHv2 Protocol, Telnet through IP Security, and out-of-band through a console port. PIX firewalls also include dependable auto-update features, a set of revolutionary secure remote-management options that make sure that firewall settings and software images are always up to date.

For more details about Progent's consulting services for Cisco PIX 500 firewalls, visit PIX firewalls integration and debugging support.

Progent's Migration Consulting for Cisco Firewalls
Because Cisco has stopped selling the PIX and ASA 5500 families of firewalls, many businesses are uncomfortable with depending on a key infrastructure component that might stop being supported by Cisco. Cisco ASA 5500-X and Firepower NGFW Series security appliances offer the benefit of being new devices and also bring several functions and budgetary benefits in comparison to PIX firewalls. These advantages include substantially better throughput, optional Secure Sockets Layer VPN capability, and a modular architecture that protects your investment by allowing you to self-install more security features when and if you need them. Progent's Cisco certified experts can help you to determine the business case for migrating from PIX or Cisco ASA 5500 firewalls, create a migration process that permits a fast and seamless upgrade, assist your IT staff to deploy new ASA 5500-x Series or Firepower Series appliances, and offer online, consulting, and troubleshooting services.

Additional Ways Progent Can Help You with Cisco Firewalls
Cisco's Firepower Series, ASA 5500 Series, and PIX security appliances provide a wealth of configuration, tracking, and troubleshooting features that offer you the flexibility to deploy these firewalls to match your company's requirements. Progent's CCIE authorized network consultants can help you to build a cost-effective infrastructure that includes Cisco firewalls and that offers world-class protection, fault tolerance, performance, and recoverability. Progent's CISA and CISM-certified IS security consultants can assist you to develop a security policy appropriate for your business and can set up your firewall to enforce your security policies. Progent's risk evaluation engineers can evaluate the strength of your existing firewall deployment and help determine the security of your entire IS network. Progent's Technical Response Center can provide urgent online troubleshooting for Cisco products and offer fast access to a Cisco CCIE network engineer.

To see more information concerning Progent's engineering support for Cisco solutions, choose a subject:

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:

In order to contact Progent about engineering expertise for Cisco products, phone 1-800-993-9400 or go to Contact Progent.



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