Cisco Network Security Troubleshooting Handbook

Chapter 3. Troubleshooting Cisco Secure PIX Firewalls

A PIX firewall falls into the category of stateful firewall. It provides security to the perimeter network by creating and maintaining the state information of connections. PIX boosts performance because its OS is embedded and runs directly from RAM for packet processing. Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA 5500 Series), is the next-generation security appliance, which runs the same OS as the PIX, but provides more security services (for example, an SSM blade for IPS, SSL VPN, and so on) than PIX Firewall. Beginning with Version 7.0, the ASA 5500 (minimum version requirement on the ASA is 7.0), and PIX platforms (running Version 7.0), provide the same firewall features. As the primary focus ...