Yes, about _just another etc_... But I am very sceptical about the PIX, in contra to IOS FW FS, because: - if you need L3 level firewaii (smart filtering), PIX have not enougph network capabilities, and is too expansive. In our (KIAE, not RELCOM) case, PIX can't work on the trunk (ISL), can't work by the ATM, and so on... On the other hand, if wee need next level firewall, it should be context level firewall, which work as proxy and prevent mail bombs, macro viruses, .EXE trojans ets. AS I know, PIX can't do it. And we have not _soft_ firewall features which can protect against the scattered scanning, simple intrusions etc withouth (almost) complex configuration and access restriction for the internal users...

Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 13:08:49 -0700 From: Glen Shok <gshok@cisco.com> To: Alex P. Rudnev <alex@Relcom.EU.net>, Robert E. Seastrom <rs@seastrom.com> Cc: Alex "Mr. Worf" Yuriev <alex@netaxs.com>, Rubens Kuhl Jr. <rkuhljr@uol.com.br>, nanog@merit.edu, Stephen Sprunk <ssprunk@cisco.com>, rs@valhalla.seastrom.com Subject: Re: FW: your mail

Guess I am a little late in replying...

Where do you guys get your rumors about hardware??? Anyway...

The FW feature set on the 7500 is just another layer of protection and shouldn't be compared to the performance of, say, using a PIX in front of your Internet Connection(s).

Glen

The preceding information is provided by "Glen" and not by "Cisco Systems", blah blah blah...insert legal stuff here....

At 03:15 PM 9/27/1999 +0400, Alex P. Rudnev wrote:

...

Folks, why all you are saying about the Gigabit traffic for the firewall?

Usially, firewall stand between intranet and internet, and it should proceed your upstream traffic, not more... And than, it's important to measure the throughput in packets/per_second, not in the gigabits...

Everything other is true - I suggess no one good firewall can proceed gigabit traffic at all, and only a few specially designed boxes can proceed 100Mbit traffic. But just again - it's a rare case when you does have 100Mbit upstream link.

Alex.

On 25 Sep 1999, Robert E. Seastrom wrote:

...

Date: 25 Sep 1999 21:26:59 -0400 From: Robert E. Seastrom <rs@seastrom.com> To: "Alex \"Mr. Worf\" Yuriev" <alex@netaxs.com> Cc: "Rubens Kuhl Jr." <rkuhljr@uol.com.br>, nanog@merit.edu, Stephen Sprunk <ssprunk@cisco.com>, rs@valhalla.seastrom.com Subject: Re: FW: your mail

...

...

...

I have listened to their seminar about this... As the simple L5 firewall it's not bad, through it realise the fixed set of ruls and defends your from the simple SMTP attacks only. But anyway, IOS FW is just what 90% of the customers need...

How would IOS FW perform on Cisco 7x00-class equipment with 100M-to-Gigabit traffic ?

Umm... Very poorly.

At the low end it's acceptable. Gigabit traffic sucks on 7500 series routers even without any kind of filtering.

The 7000-series routers, if they have an SSE, will do standard and extended access lists in the switch engine. Now, given the limitations of CX-FEIP-2TX boards (the only faste boards that will work in a non-RSP 7000), you are lucky to get 70 mbit/sec through that. If you have fddi, you can get most of the way to 100 mbit/sec one way (the CX-FIP cards, which are the only FDDIs that work in a 7000, won't do full-duplex).

The 7500-series routers, you really want to get a VIP2-50 rather than a 2-40 or lower if you're going to be doing filtering on the linecard. You can load the fast ethernets up just fine there.

400 mbit/sec seems to be the upper limit of the currently shipping generation of gigE cards for the 7500 series.

Hope this helps (and standing by for corrections from the #cisco IRC mafia...)

---Rob

Aleksei Roudnev, Network Operations Center, Relcom, Moscow (+7 095) 194-19-95 (Network Operations Center Hot Line),(+7 095) 230-41-41, N 13729 (pager) (+7 095) 196-72-12 (Support), (+7 095) 194-33-28 (Fax)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Glen Shok Phone: 1.650.404.3594 Systems Engineer Cell: 1.415.215.7279 NSP Norcal Operation Pager: 1.800.365.4578

Jack thought it twice, and thought that that that made it true.

Aleksei Roudnev, Network Operations Center, Relcom, Moscow (+7 095) 194-19-95 (Network Operations Center Hot Line),(+7 095) 230-41-41, N 13729 (pager) (+7 095) 196-72-12 (Support), (+7 095) 194-33-28 (Fax)