Hardware solution Advantages of the PIX Firewall

148 As the PIX was designed with only one purpose in mind, that of securing a private network by both filtering traffic and establishing secure links across an unprotected Internet, it is an excellent place to establish logging controls on the network. Further, the PIX machine is a fine encryption device, protecting valuable communication with tried and true cryptographic techniques.

9.2.2.3 Single point of controlfailure

When network trouble is at hand, a clear delineation between the outside world and ones local world is an immense asset. By using a single unit to handle the networks entire firewalling needs, the network coordinator has a clear starting point for troubleshooting. The PIX provides such an architecture. By having a single unit handle all network traffic in this manner, equipment malfunction and software misconfiguration could cause a great amount of havoc in one fell swoop. But Cisco has anticipated this problem with a fail-over, hot-standby mode, whereby two units can be configured in parallel. Should some fault occur to one of the units, the other can support the firewall by maintaining operation transparently.

9.2.2.4 Dynamic address translation

The dynamic translation feature, which allows users to pick up a free address from the Internet pool whenever they need one, does more than just allow many people to share a few NIC registered addresses. It also provides adaptive security to the hosts using the internal addresses. The PIX unit has two interfaces, one for the exterior network and one for the interior one. Because of this, the internal address range is hidden by translating the internal address into the dynamic pool of addresses for Internet exchange. This method provides a high level of security because a threat is much less likely when an attacker doesnt know the architecture, network range, or setup of the internal network

9.2.2.5 PIX acts like a proxy server

Unix-based proxy servers are commonplace in todays world, and most of them serve their function well. Proxy servers do essentially what the PIX firewall was engineered to do: they hide a machine or a network of machines from the outside world by masquerading as the client in network conversations with unknown or unverifiable parties. The PIX is more robust than the standard proxy servers because it provides a quick session bypass once the authenticated parties have shaken hands. Traditional proxy servers maintain state information for the duration of the session, and handle their packet control at the top of the protocol stack. Moreover, because software-driven proxy servers perform packet filtering, they prevent the use of almost all the VPN solutions on the market today.

9.2.2.6 Ease of configuration and maintenance

For the most part, the PIX is very easy to handle in everyday use. Once the configuration is applied and tested, it handles its job silently and without complaint. As is popular in todays world, to further assist the network coordinators that will be installing the device, Cisco has made an HTML front end for configuration. There is of course the old standby option of the command-line-driven interface, which could be used by those more familiar with Ciscos prevalent IOS software.