Choosing the right firewall is one of the most important decisions a security team can make. This checklist will help you evaluate and compare firewall products before you buy.
Performance Requirements
- What is your peak throughput requirement?
- How many concurrent connections must the firewall support?
- What is your VPN throughput requirement?
Security Features
- Does it support stateful packet inspection?
- Does it include application-layer filtering?
- Is deep packet inspection available?
- Does it integrate with IDS/IPS?
Management and Logging
- Is a centralized management console available?
- Does it support SNMP for monitoring?
- What logging capabilities does it provide?
- Does it integrate with your SIEM?