Cisco has created a very good replacement for the PIX, and that is the ASA series. Port forwarding on the ASA 5500 series can be challenging. In this post, Cisco ASA 5505 Port Forward Example - How to the process is demystified and with a few command line entered in the IOS or with a few clicks in the GUI, anyone can configure port forwarding on the Cisco ASA 5500 series. In this example, it's the Cisco ASA 5505, but the settings are similar if not identical in other versions of the product.
Another interesting fact regarding the Cisco ASA 5505 compared to a very similar firewall router made by sonicwall. Sonicwall makes other models but I could speak for the lower end model, the TZ170, which has been replaced by the TZ180. These models compare against the Cisco ASA 5505 in price and target market. One of the features I found that the soniwall has in this price range that the cisco unfortunately does not is load balancing. The cisco ASA can have a dual isp license (a seperate purchase) added to the base model that will enable it to have two ISP services connected to it. The problem I found with the feature is that it can only be used for redundancy in an active/passive configuration. The sonicwall supports load balance between connections. Client connections going out to the internet are divided between the two connections. The connections support percentage based load balancing, connection counts, or round robin. It could also be configured for active/passive. I think if there are two connection and the device supports a dual ISP configuration, why not use them both in an active/active configuration.

To add a comment please login by clicking here