PIX

Converting from old to new with the PIX to ASA Migration Tool

In my blog post “Sadly, the PIX Firewall Is Discontinued,” written early in 2008, I said how much I had enjoyed working with the Cisco PIX over the years and how disappointed I was that it was announced by Cisco to be “End of Sale” on January 28, 2008.

Now, you can easily migrate your PIX configurations to ASA configuration for your new devices. Find out how to do it, step by step, in my new articleL Converting from old to new with the PIX to ASA Migration Tool

Cisco PIX to ASA MigrationTool

July 28, 2009 will be the end of sale / end of life for the Cisco PIX. As you already know the Cisco ASA is the replacement. Luckily for us, Cisco offers a free Cisco PIX to ASA migration tool that you can download free (for registered Cisco.com members).

You can read more about this in Jamey Heary’s Network World.com Article - PIX to ASA Configuration Migration Tool, time is running short

FirePlotter shows real-time Internet traffic on Cisco PIX, ASA, and Fortinet

I ran across this cool firewall tool called Fireplotter. It graphs and shows real-time Internet traffic going through your Cisco PIX, ASA, or Fortinet Firewall. You can use it to:

• Find out why your internet connection seems to have slowed down
• Identify unfamiliar connections
• See Bandwidth Hoggers
• Track down Virus or Malware infected PCs
• Monitor undesirable Website Usage
• Check that email is flowing in and out
• Check that VPNs are up
• Use Basic View Mode to summarize traffic, Advanced View Mode for details
• Monitor network availability

I like that the free “watch only” version is available to be used at no cost! The commercial versions offer more features and are tiered per the size of your firewall.

You can download Fireplotter and read more about it at: www.FirePlotter.com

Sadly, the PIX Firewall is Discontinued…

What is the name that everyone thinks of when they think of firewalls? The “PIX” firewall, right?

Sadly, the PIX will be discontinued by Cisco, as of January 27, 2009.  This was announced on January 28, 2008 in this Cisco Press Release. If you are a PIX owner, the good news is that Cisco will support it until the year 2013 so, no rush huh?

Of course, we all know that the PIX will be replaced by the ASA 5500 line. When the ASA was announced we all saw this coming, even though Cisco said that they had no plans to discontinue the PIX and that there was a place in the marketplace for both. Still, it just made sense to discontinue the PIX.

So can the ASA become as well known as the PIX? Instead of asking for a firewall will admins just say “we need to install an ASA”? And is it pronounced “A.S.A.” or “Aay-Sah-Uh”? Only time will tell…

But seriously, the ASA is a very strong firewall and it can do a lot of things that the PIX could not do because the ASA is a real “UTM” or “Anti-X Appliance”. That means that, when combined with the CSC-SSM card (the card that really provides the Anti-X / UTM), the ASA is a much more complete firewall. The ASA is what businesses need today because, today, it isn’t enough to just maintain TCP states and drop traffic. You need intrusion prevention. You need filtering of traffic for viruses, worms, and malicious attack signatures in the real time. You want content filtering of web traffic. The ASA can do all that and more.

Do you have a Cisco ASA? What do you think of it? I’d like to hear from you! 

For more information on the Cisco ASA, checkout the ASA homepage over at Cisco.com

-David
Personal Website: HappyRouter.com
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