Firewall Software and Hardware: A Comparative Overview
This paper provides a comprehensive introduction to computer firewalls, covering their definition, underlying principles, and primary categories—including network layer, application layer, and proxy-based firewalls. It then profiles three major vendors: Symantec, Zone Labs, and Cisco Systems. Drawing on those profiles, the paper recommends specific products for three distinct network scenarios: a small LAN with no publicly accessible resources, a small LAN hosting one public-facing website, and a large organization running an e-commerce site with resources accessed by strategic partners. The paper concludes that product selection should be driven by the scale, exposure level, and management complexity of the target environment.
- Firewall Overview: Definition and core function of firewalls
- Types of Firewalls: Personal, network layer, application layer, and proxy types
- Major Software and Hardware Firewall Manufacturers: Profiles of Symantec, Zone Labs, and Cisco
- Best Products for a Small LAN Without Publicly Accessible Resources: Norton Personal Firewall and ZoneAlarm Pro recommendations
- Best Products for a Small LAN With One Publicly Accessible Website: Cisco PIX Firewall as recommended solution
- Best Products for Large Organizations With E-Commerce and Partner Access: Symantec Enterprise Firewall for complex environments
- Conclusion: Summary of firewall selection by deployment scenario
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper moves logically from foundational concepts to applied product recommendations, giving readers the context they need before evaluating specific solutions.
- It uses direct quotations from industry sources and vendor documentation to ground claims about product capabilities, adding credibility to what could otherwise be purely descriptive writing.
- The three-scenario framework (small LAN, small LAN with public site, large enterprise) gives the paper a clear practical structure that maps directly to real-world decision-making.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates applied comparative analysis: it establishes evaluation criteria early (protection scope, self-protection, compliance tools, integration) and then uses those criteria implicitly when recommending specific products for each scenario. This prevents the product sections from reading as mere advertisements and ties recommendations back to the analytical framework established in the overview.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a definition-driven overview that introduces both hardware and software firewalls, then distinguishes personal from traditional firewalls and network layer from application layer types. A vendor profiles section follows, covering Symantec, Zone Labs, and Cisco. The final three sections each address a distinct deployment scenario, matching a recommended product to a specific organizational context. The references section lists all sources in APA format.
Firewall Overview
Computers have become an increasingly crucial component in how people live and do business. For this reason, protecting the valuable data contained on a computer has become ever more important. Firewalls have become a commonplace protection for many organizations and individuals alike.
This paper gives an overview of what a firewall is, investigates some of the major computer software and hardware vendors that offer firewall products, and considers which products are best suited to three distinct scenarios: a small LAN with no publicly accessible resources, a small LAN that contains one publicly accessible website, and a large organization with an e-commerce website and internal resources accessed by strategic partners.
To determine which firewall products are most appropriate for a given scenario, one must first understand what a firewall is. "The security experts say a firewall is a dedicated machine that checks every network packet passing through, and that either drops or rejects certain packets based on rules set by the system administrator" (Wouters, 1997). Beyond this hardware-based definition, the development of firewall applications has expanded the concept to include anything—hardware or software—that performs the filtering of packets.
Firewalls have "the basic task of controlling traffic between different zones of trust" ("Firewall (networking)," 2005). These zones typically include the Internet and an internal network. The Internet is generally defined as a zone with no trust, while an internal network is typically a zone of high trust. The goal of a firewall is to control connectivity between these differing levels of trust.
References
About Zone Labs. (2005). Retrieved March 13, 2005, from http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/aboutUs/aboutUs.jsp
Cisco PIX 500 Series firewall. (2005). Retrieved March 13, 2005, from http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/vpndevc/ps2030/index.html
Cisco PIX firewall software. (2005). Retrieved March 13, 2005, from http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/secursw/ps2120/index.html
Firewall (networking). (2005, March 13). Retrieved March 13, 2005, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewall_%28networking%29
Firewall/VPN. (2005). Retrieved March 13, 2005, from
Key features: Norton Personal Firewall 2005. (n.d.). Retrieved March 13, 2005, from
News @ Cisco. (2005). Retrieved March 13, 2005, from
Norton Personal Firewall 2005. (n.d.). Retrieved March 13, 2005, from
Silver, M., & Pescatore, J. (2004, August 12). Choosing a personal firewall for enterprise PCs using Windows XP. Retrieved March 13, 2005, from http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/corpsales/solutionXPSP2.jsp
Symantec corporate information. (n.d.). Retrieved March 13, 2005, from
Symantec Enterprise Firewall. (2005). Retrieved March 13, 2005, from
Wouters, P. (1997, August). Designing a safe network using firewalls. Linux Journal, 40. Retrieved March 13, 2005, from the ACM Digital Library database.
ZoneAlarm Pro. (2005). Retrieved March 13, 2005, from http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/catalog/products/zap/zap_details.jsp?lid=ho_zap
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