Hi,
I have some questions regarding FWSM and CSM. Thank you in advance for your feedback.
I am using a pair of 6513 with one fwsm and csm in each. I am setting up a dmz environment with these units. fwsm is the second tier firewall (a pair of PIX 525 are in perimeter).
1. Do I have to use MSFC? I am connecting PIXes to the outside VLAN of the FWSM and two inside routers to inside VLAN of the FWSM. FWSM has a DMZ VLAN as well. I don't see any reason to involve MSFC in the picture. Is this correct? Is there any reason in the future that I may need MSFC (i.e. changing from single context to multiple or using load balancing for DMZ servers)?
2. I am going to extend outside and inside VLANs of FWSM between two 6513 switches. Should I do this for DMZ as well? As I do not use gateway redundancy for my DMZ servers and it is a pure firewall configuration of 6513/FWSM, I don't think it is required.
3. My understanding is with extending outside VLAN, if the link between primary PIX and primary 6513 fails or if primary PIX fails over to secondary for any reason, secondary PIX will have a way to get to the outside interface of primary FWSM. Is this correct? If not, then how I can make sure that PIX fail over will be transparent to primary 6513/FWSM which is not connected to secondary PIX?
4. Any difference in spanning-tree configuration between this environment and a regular dual homed server based config?
Thanks,