Cisco is sweeping aside its long-standing PIX firewall appliances in favor if 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 506, 515 and 520.
PIX appliances were fated for termination when the company introduced its ASA 5500s in 2006. 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.
CheckPoint, Juniper, TippingPoint/3Com, Nokia, NetScreen and Sonicwall also offer devices that combine multiple security functions such as VPN, firewall and intrusion-detection/prevention systems.
