Cisco sets last sale date for PIX firewall

ASA 5500 UTMs to replace the old gear

Cisco is sweeping aside its long-standing PIX firewall appliances in favor of its newer ASA 5500 appliances that perform the same functions as the discontinued devices plus more.

The last day to buy the devices is July 28, and support for them ends July 27, 2013, according to end-of-life notices posted this week by Cisco. The models involved are the PIX 501, 506E, 515E, 525 and 535.

PIX appliances were fated for termination when the company introduced its ASA 5500s in 2005. These devices support firewall and VPN just like the PIX but with better performance, SSL VPN support, VoIP security. It has modules for antivirus, antispam, antiphishing and URL filtering.

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Cisco is sweeping aside its long-standing PIX firewall appliances in favor of its newer ASA 5500 appliances that perform the same functions as the discontinued devices plus more.

The last day to buy the devices is July 28, and support for them ends July 27, 2013, according to end-of-life notices posted this week by Cisco. The models involved are the PIX 501, 506E, 515E, 525 and 535.

PIX appliances were fated for termination when the company introduced its ASA 5500s in 2005. These devices support firewall and VPN just like the PIX but with better performance, SSL VPN support, VoIP security. It has modules for antivirus, antispam, antiphishing and URL filtering.

Last February, Cisco stopped selling its other competing firewall/VPN devices, the VPN 3000 series concentrators.

(Learn more about unified threat management devices from our Unified Threat Management Buyer's Guide.)

CheckPoint, Juniper, TippingPoint/3Com, Nokia, and Sonicwall also offer devices that combine multiple security functions such as VPN, firewall and intrusion-detection/prevention systems.

Read more about security in Network World's Security section.