Object group, network and service objects

[Kashish_Patel]

I am new to cisco ASAs and confused about the differences between an object group, network object and service object.

Network and service objects are listed as new features in ASA release 8.3, while I see object groups in earlier ASA releases as well. Can someone give one line definition of these?

I have already referred docs, and not much clarity I got from them.

Thanks,

Kashish

[Kashish_Patel]

One more Question related to this:

Is it mandatory to use network and service objects while defining NAT rules in ASA 8.3 release onwards? Can't we have the type of NAT statements that we used to have in version 8.2 and earlier?