Cisco PIX 500 Series Security Appliances

Cisco flagship and industry-leading PIX 500 Series Security Appliance provides comprehensive security, performance, and reliability for network environments of all sizes, offering an array of multitiered solutions. It is a family of specialized appliances that provide robust integrated network security services, including stateful inspection firewalling, VPNs, and inline intrusion detection.

The dedicated software engine incorporates the state-of-the-art Cisco Adaptive Security Algorithm, which provides stateful inspection firewall services by monitoring the state of all authorized network communications while preventing unauthorized network access. Cisco PIX Security Appliances offer an additional layer of security by integrating more than two dozen purpose-built inspection engines that perform in-depth packet examination for the most common applications and protocols used today. The Cisco PIX Security Appliance provides a wide range of integrated security services in an easy-to-deploy, high-performance solution.

THe Cisco PIX 500 Series range from desktop appliances for small and home offices to modular gigabit appliances for enterprise and service-provider environments, as shown in Table 6-1. (Note that photos are not available for the Cisco PIX 506E and Cisco PIX 515E.)

Table 6-1. Cisco PIX 500 Series Devices

Device	Description
Cisco PIX 501	Compact, plug-n-play Security Appliance for small office/home office environments. PIX 501 appliances provide an integrated 4-port Fast Ethernet (10/100) switch and a Fast Ethernet (10/100) interface.
Cisco PIX 506E	Cost-effective, high-performance Security Appliance for remote office/branch office environments. PIX 506E provides two auto-sensing Fast Ethernet (10/100) interfaces.
Cisco PIX 515E	Modular, high-performance Security Appliance for small-to-medium and enterprise network environments. PIX 515E appliance is a modular one-rack-unit design supporting up to six 10/100 Fast Ethernet interfaces.
Cisco PIX 525	Gigabit Ethernet connectivity, modular Security Appliance for medium-to-large enterprise network environments. PIX 525 appliance is a modular two-rack-unit design supporting up to eight 10/100 Fast Ethernet interfaces or three Gigabit Ethernet interfaces.
Cisco PIX 535	Highly modular, high-performance Gigabit Ethernet connectivity Security Appliance for enterprise and service provider network environments. PIX 535 appliance is a modular three-rack-unit design supporting up to ten 10/100 Fast Ethernet interfaces or nine Gigabit Ethernet interfaces and redundant power supplies.