Firewall Selection Criteria

[afaqzafar]

Hi, 

I am currently working in a Pre-sales environment and facing a lot of queries regarding firewalls and security. Recently I got a query in which client told me he has 500 users and he wants a firewall as per their need. So now i need to know which factors should be consider to evaluate the right model and which things we should ask customer to give them right solution for firewall. Looking forward to positive response. 

Thanks. 

Afaq Ahmad

[Dennis Mink]

First you will need to decide how much traffic it is going to have to process (throughput). 

for this you will need to consider the size of your internet link (mbps).

and you will need to consider the number of physical. with 500 users I d be inclined to go  5508X , 5516X might be a bit over specs,

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/security/asa-5500-series-next-generation-firewalls/datasheet-c78-733916.html

[afaqzafar]

Thanks for the response. But how can we calculate these two factors?
Maximum Throughput
Maximum Concurrent Connections

[Leo Laohoo]

Budget. Don't forget to factor in the Budget. No budget? No toys.

[Dennis Mink]

budget is overrated. LOL

[Shubham Bharti]

Some of the criteria that will be useful while deciding the appropriate NGFW for the organization :

• Maximum Throughput
• Maximum Concurrent Connections
• Year on Year Growth
• IPS Feature enabled/disabled

You can cross-verify once all these data are provided with the datasheet information of ASA 5500-X series:

https://www.cisco.com/c/en_in/products/collateral/security/asa-5500-series-next-generation-firewalls/datasheet-c78-733916.html

[afaqzafar]

Thanks for the response. But how can we calculate these two factors?
Maximum Throughput
Maximum Concurrent Connections

[Shubham Bharti]

Netflow should be able to help in finding both the parameters. If you are looking for something much simpler and just an approximate value, any network monitoring tool in the organization should be able to help you with this. 

For Maximum connection, if there are 500 users and we assume x connections per user. Total concurrent connection will be 500x. The network team will be much accurate with the value of x as they are familiar with the environment. 

PS: Always look for maximum value and not the average value.

Cisco Advertisement: For more accurate gauge, you can always involve Cisco Sales team.