Cisco IT Consultants

Cisco is a perennial leader in delivering cutting-edge firewall appliances for the broadest possible range of deployments. Cisco's Firepower Next Generation Firewalls (NGFWs) provide an advanced cybersecurity platform that combines dedicated hardware, cloud services, and next-generation intrusion protection system (NGIPS) to anticipate, identify, and respond to cyber attacks without manual intervention. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE-certified firewall experts can help you to plan and carry out an efficient upgrade to Cisco Firepower Series firewalls from Cisco's from ASA 5500-X, ASA 5500, or PIX appliances and show you how to enhance Firepower firewalls with Cisco's subscription-based security services to build and centrally manage IT environments that include branch offices, data centers, and cloud resources. Progent can also help you to manage and debug legacy Cisco security appliances. Progent's certified cybersecurity consultants can assist you with policy creation and tuning based on industry best practices so you can build a consistent security profile across all your devices anywhere.

Cisco's Firepower Next Generation Firewalls
Cisco's Firepower NGFWs Firewalls deliver a major performance boost over Cisco's previous-generation ASA 5500-X security appliances and include centralized management of advanced security capabilities like application visibility and control, next-generation intrusion protection with intelligent prioritization of risks, advanced malware protection, URL filtering, and sandboxing. For more information about Cisco's Firepower family of NGFWs Firewalls, refer to Firepower firewalls consulting expertise.

Cisco's ASA 5500-X and Legacy Firewalls
Cisco's ASA 5500-X, ASA 5500, and PIX firewalls provide combined firewall, VPN, and IPS services in compact single-box devices, delivering a wide array of features to meet the security and compliance needs of organizations ranging from small and mid-size businesses to enterprises and ISPs. Cisco's ASA 5500-X Series, ASA 5500 Series, and PIX 500 firewall appliances allow network security teams to protect their network perimeter and offer safe remote access while using advanced administration mechanisms based on Cisco's industry-leading firewall products.

Cisco's ASA 5500 Series and PIX 500 firewalls have arrived at end-of-life status but are still commonly deployed in smaller organizations and in a few enterprise data centers. Cisco's ASA 5500-X Series Next-Generation Firewalls represent substantially more value and have supplanted Cisco's ASA 5500 and PIX families of firewalls for new installations. However, Cisco's older model firewalls, if properly maintained, continue to deliver a high level of security by providing multiple security functions including stateful firewall, VPN, and IPS.

Following Cisco's acquisition of Sourcefire, the whole line of ASA 5500-X devices can be configured to enable Firepower Services, based on Sourcefire's Snort product, which is the world's most deployed intrusion protection system (IPS). Firepower services provide powerful new capabilities such as advanced malware protection (AMP), URL filtering, real-time threat analytics, and security automation.

Progent's Cisco-premier infrastructure consultants can assist you to support and debug older ASA 5500 and PIX firewalls and can also assist you to plan and implement an efficient migration to Cisco's ASA 5500-X firewalls with Firepower Services. Progent can also assist you to plan, integrate, tune, administer and troubleshoot new firewall ecosystems based on Cisco's latest ASA 5500-X models with Firepower. Progent's firewall consultants can also assist your organization to upgrade from your Cisco ASA 5500-X deployment to Cisco's Firepower NGFWs Firewalls.

Cisco's ASA 5500-X Series Firewalls
Cisco's extensive family of ASA 5500-X security appliances includes an improved replacement for each rack-mountable model in the previous ASA 5500 generation of firewalls. Each ASA 5500-X model is suited for the same market as the corresponding previous models, which gives most plenty of room for picking a solution that meets their security needs and IT budgets. All ASA 5500-X firewalls build on Cisco's tested stateful-inspection firewall technology and all include purpose-built 64-bit hardware with multicore processors and support Cisco's powerful security services. All devices in Cisco's ASA 5500-X product line deliver dependable security across any mix of physical, virtual, and cloud environments.

For additional information about ASA 5500-X firewalls, Firepower services, and Progent's consulting for Cisco ASA 5500-X security appliances, see Firepower integration and debugging consulting

Firepower Services for ASA 5500-X Firewalls
Cisco ASA 5500-X security appliances accept software or physical modules that support Firepower Services, which offer layered defense against advanced attacks. Firepower Services are powered by innovative technology acquired by Cisco from Sourcefire. Key features of Firepower Services for ASA 5500-X firewalls include:

• Layered protection against familiar and zero-day threats
• Advanced Malware Protection that utilizes big data to discover and remediate intrusions
• A Next-Generation Intrusion Prevention System that provides contextual analysis that looks at users, infrastructure, apps, and content to detect threats that use multiple approaches
• Fine-grained Application Visibility and Control (AVC that is familiar with thousands of applications and can automatically activate both standard and custom IPS policies depending on the degree of risk

Simpler deployments of ASA firewalls can be efficiently managed via Cisco's on-device Adaptive Security Device Manager (ASDM) Adaptive Security Device Manager, a web tool which is provided with all ASA 5500-X models. ASDM provides a convenient web console for configuring, administering, and debugging ASA 5500-X devices and service modules.

For multi-device and multi-site environments, ASA 5500-X firewalls with Firepower Services can be managed with Firepower Management Center, implemented as one or several physical or virtual devices. Firepower Management Center provides centralized firewall management, Application Visibility and Control, advanced IPS, URL filtering, and Cisco's Advanced Malware Protection (AMP). Due to ongoing rebranding after Cisco's acquisition of Sourcefire Defense Center, Firepower Management Center has been offered under various names including Cisco Defense Center, FireSIGHT Defense Center, and Cisco Firesight Management Center.

Cisco's Firepower Management Center provides capabilities beyond those available with Cisco's on-device ASDM utility. Extra features include expanded context awareness, Advanced Malware Protection with mitigation for client devices, a dashboard that offers real-time infrastructure visualization, automated policy optimization driven by risk assessment of attacks, advanced IPS, custom app detectors for Application Visibility and Control, customized health notifications, enhanced reporting options, and application interfaces for host input and database access. Hardware-dependent features like clustering, stacking, switching, routing, VPN, and NAT must be handled using either Cisco's ASA 5500-X on-device ASDM or the ASA CLI.

Cisco ASA 5500 Series Adaptive Security Appliances
Cisco ASA Firewalls leverage technology behind Cisco's PIX 500 family firewall, the IPS 4200 family Intrusion Prevention System, and Cisco's VPN 3000 model concentrator. These technologies converge on the Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances 5500 Series Firewall product line to deliver a firewall that stops the widest range of threats. Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances (ASA) Firewalls provide program protection, network containment and control, and clean VPN functionality across the entire product portfolio. This breadth of security enables defense of any network area, including the most common attack vectors like remote sites, locally-connected internal users, and off-site access VPNs.

Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances (ASA) 5500 Series firewalls deliver robust application security through smart, application-aware inspection engines that examine network flows at Layers 4-7. This produces a more secure network including Web, voice, and 3G-mobile wireless connectivity. To protect networks against application-layer assaults and to offer better control over the programs and protocols used in their networks, these inspection engines integrate extensive application and protocol knowledgebases and employ protection enforcement technologies that include anomaly sensing and state monitoring. Also included are attack detection and mitigation technology such as application and protocol command filtering and URL deobfuscation. Cisco ASA firewall inspection engines also deliver control over IM and peer-to-peer file sharing, enabling businesses to police usage policies and conserve network bandwidth for critical business applications.

For more details about Progent's support services for Cisco's ASA 5500 firewalls, see Cisco ASA 5500 firewalls configuration and troubleshooting consulting.

PIX Firewalls
Based around a tested, purpose-built operating system that delivers a wealth of security services, PIX security appliances offer a high level of security and have been awarded EAL 4 status and ICSA Firewall and IP Security qualification. Cisco PIX firewall appliances offer security for a broad range of VoIP and additional mixed-media conventions such as H.323 Version 4, Session Initiation Protocol, Cisco Skinny Client Control Protocol, RTSP, and MGCP, helping organizations to safeguard deployments of a broad range of contemporary and upcoming VoIP and mixed-media applications.

IT managers can furthermore remotely configure, track, and analyze PIX firewall appliances via a CLI interface. Safe command-line interface (CLI) communication is possible using several techniques including Secure Shell Protocol, Telnet over IPsec, and out-of-band via a console port. Cisco PIX security appliances also have dependable automatic-update capabilities, a collection of revolutionary secure remote-management services that ensure security configurations and software images are always up to date.

For additional information about Progent's consulting services for PIX firewalls, see Cisco PIX firewalls configuration and debugging consulting.

Progent's Migration Consulting Services for Cisco Firewalls
Because Cisco has stopped offering the PIX 500 and ASA 5500 product lines, many businesses are uncomfortable with relying on a key infrastructure component that may no longer be supported by Cisco. ASA 5500-X and Firepower NGFW Series security appliances have the benefit of being new products and also offer a number of functions and financial advantages in comparison to PIX 500 devices. These advantages include significantly higher performance, optional Secure Sockets Layer tunneling capability, and an expandable design that guards your investment by enabling you to self-install more security features when and if you require them. Progent's Cisco certified network engineers can assist your company to determine the strategic value of for migrating from PIX 500 or Cisco ASA 5500 firewalls, design a migration process that permits a quick and non-disruptive upgrade, assist you to set up new ASA 5500-x Series or Firepower NGFW Series firewalls, and provide remote training, consulting, and troubleshooting services.

Other Ways Progent Can Assist Your Business with Cisco Firewalls
Cisco Firepower NGFW Series, ASA 5500 Series, and PIX family security appliances incorporate a wealth of setup, monitoring, and troubleshooting features that give you the ability to deploy these security appliances to align optimally with your business needs. Progent's CCIE authorized network consultants can assist you to design a cost-effective infrastructure that incorporates Cisco firewalls and that offers advanced protection, fault tolerance, performance, and recoverability. Progent's CISA and CISM-certified IS security consultants can assist you to create a security policy that makes sense for your situation and can set up your firewall to support your security strategy. Progent's risk evaluation consultants can evaluate the strength of your current firewall deployment and help determine the security of your entire IT network. Progent's Technical Response Center (TRC) can deliver emergency remote troubleshooting for Cisco products and offer quick access to a Cisco expert.

To learn additional information about Progent's professional help for Cisco technology, select a topic:

• Introduction to Cisco Network Support
• Timely Remote Assistance from a CCIE Engineer
• Cisco ASA 5500-X Firewall with Firepower: Integration and Management Support
• Cisco Routers Configuration and Troubleshooting Expertise
• Cisco Wireless Engineering Support
• Aironet APs Design Help
• Cisco Small Business WiFi Access Points Engineering Expertise
• Catalyst Wi-Fi 6/6E Access Points Solution Design, Deployment and Troubleshooting Expertise
• Cisco WiFi Controllers Integration Consulting
• Cisco Meraki Wireless APs Engineering Services
• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM or Unified CM) and Cisco CallManager Integration and Technical Support
• Cisco Voice over IP Phones and IP Video Phones Consulting and Wireless VoIP Phone Solutions
• Cisco Jabber Deployment Services
• Cisco Catalyst Switches Deployment Services
• Nexus Switches Deployment Expertise
• Cisco Meraki Switches Deployment Services
• Cisco VPN and Network Security Engineering Help
• SIP and CUBE Integration Solutions: SIP PSTN Trunks and CUBE Integration Consulting
• Cisco Duo MFA Two-factor Authentication Services for Telecommuters
• Design Solutions for Cisco-powered Datacenters
• Network Design Consulting for Internet Service Providers
• Unified Cloud-based and Hybrid Network Management Strategies for Cisco-based Infrastructure

Integration of Cisco and Third-party Firewall Technology
Progent offers expertise in firewall and VPN products from all major vendors and can help you integrate Cisco technology with additional security solutions to help you build a cost-effective network infrastructure that provides a level of security and flexibility appropriate for your business. Third-party firewall and VPN support services available from Progent include:

• Palo Alto Networks PA-Series Firewalls Consulting
• Check Point Software Consulting Cisco-ASA-and-PIX-Engineers.htm
• Barracuda CloudGen Firewall Consulting
• Watchguard Consulting
• Juniper Networks NetScreen and SSG Firewall Consulting
• SonicWall Consulting
• Fortinet FortiGate Firewall Consulting
• Symantec Raptor Consulting

To contact Progent about technical help for Cisco products, call 1-800-993-9400 or refer to Contact Progent.