Cisco ASA: All-in-One Firewall, IPS, and VPN Adaptive Security Appliance

Chapter 9. Security Contexts

This chapter covers the following topics:

• Architectural overview

• Configuration of security contexts

• Deployment scenarios

• Monitoring and troubleshooting

The virtual firewall methodology enables a physical firewall to be partitioned into multiple standalone firewalls. Each standalone firewall acts and behaves as an independent entity with its own configuration, interfaces, security policies, routing table, and administrators. In Cisco ASA, these virtual firewalls are known as security contexts.

The following are some example scenarios in which security contexts are useful in network deployments:

• You act as a service provider and you want to provide firewall services to customers. However, you do not want to purchase additional ...