Home > Consumer Reviews > Cisco Syst. PIX 501 Security Appliance ( PIX-501-UL-BUN-K9 )

After some research and few friend's recommendation, I decided on PIX 501. It's the lowest model of PIX from Cisco (which fits our small company's need), but it has the same technology of Stateful Packet Inspection as other Cisco Firewall, except at a lower bandwidth.

I'm not a network admin, so I didn't know that with a firewall, I need to change all public IP to internal IP in order for it work. Since this particular PIX doesn't do layer 2 conversion. So I got my work cut out for me to migration over 50 machines to internal IP, well, it's for the best security anyway. Should have been done a long time ago before I inherit the network. Firewall rules are pretty simple, similar to Cisco router ACL. I wanted to use the GUI, but my friends were against it, they said it's pretty weak. They're right, command line is better, but nevertheless, I tried the GUI (PDM), it's not bad to see some graphs but for some feature I think it's less confusing using command line. PDM is written in Java but Java 1.5 won't work, some compatibility issue, you have to use Java 1.4. I found this out the hard way.

It's got some pretty nice feature because of packet inspection, like it checks for ftp command, so bad commands to ftp port gets block. This will block hacker from hacking using bug inside the FTP server. Also for FTP, it takes care of ftp ports usage (port 20, 21), none of these active/passive issues. Passive FTP works w/ firewall, but if both side has firewall w/ high ports blocked, then ftp will have problem. But the PIX takes care of that issue.

Overall, it's a solid firewall, haven't had any trouble with it once it's setup. Pretty happy with it. And the unlimited licenses means unlimited IP internally, so we don't have to worry about the license issue.

You can get every goodies of network security from this little baby, except the DMZ and VLANs. In response of previous comment, you can always get PIX 515E, 525, or even 535 for more network demand. But again, basically they are all the same. The differences are only the DMZ, VLAN, and speed.

Since this kind of product requires sufficient knowledge of networking, I advise not to blame products due to your lack of knowledge. Most problems with firewalls (and other networking devices) are improper choice of product, poor configuration, and lack of networking knowledge. You should know what you are doing and what are the implications.

Cisco products have been proven as top of the line in regards of their customer services. As an example, go to their website. You will find wealth of networking tips, which is gold mine even for non-Cisco users. Never other companies have this kind of website.

You can your every penny worth with Cisco products (including this PIX 501) as long as (one more time) you know what you are doing and why.

Cisco PIX 501 Security Appliance is perfect firewall system for offices with moderate threat level to their security. Firewall device 501 is ideal for securing high-speed broadband environments, the Cisco PIX 501 delivers up to 60 Mbps of firewall throughput, and supports up to 3 Mbps of Triple Data Encryption Standard (3DES) VPN throughput. The Advanced Encryption Standard-128 (AES) VPN throughput has 4.5 Mbps speed capability.

The Cisco PIX 501 Security Appliance provides several options for securing network communications between mobile users, remote offices, and corporate networks over low-cost Internet connections. However, for bigger corporate and enterprise level and to support complex network configurations, this is not a right product. I still believe that checkpoint is a better solution for bigger networks but its support is not as good as Cisco.

Moreover, Cisco devices are generally fully compatible with other Cisco products like routers and VPN concentrators.

Again, The quality and reliability should not be discussed here as it is another standard quality product from Cisco Inc. Cisco 501 Security Appliance will serve the purpose well for smaller offices with fewer remote locations.