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firewalls and routers

carl_townshend
Spotlight
Spotlight

I was told that a firewall is not a router and does not route traffic, can anyone tell me what this means, as with firewalls you route out of an interface to a next hop just like a router.

3 Replies 3

Collin Clark
VIP Alumni
VIP Alumni

A router is meant to route packets. It does that quickly and efficiently. A firewall can/does route packets, but it does not do it as quickly and efficiently as a router and should not be used in place of a router (assuming your routing and not firewalling).

rajatsetia
Level 1
Level 1

Hi carl

Merry Christmas !!

yes this is correct, firewall is not a router as its meant to do a different kind of role i.e. filter traffic ...

so its not a very good choice in place of router, its doesnt have the WAN interface that router has and cannt do the routing and forwarding so efficiently as a router would do .

but still it can route packets :)

HTH

rgds

rajat

Danilo Dy
VIP Alumni
VIP Alumni

Hi Carl,

In the old days, firewall is a firewall though it can route traffic it can't take over the router job, same for router that though it can do filtering it can't take over the firewall job.

But today, firewall can take over the router job. The same for router, it can takeover firewall job.

I have configured a CheckPoint firewall running full OSPF in a large global network and similary I have configured a Checkpoint firewall running full BGP with two upstream.

New routers from Cisco (i.e. 3800, 2800) are used as router, firewall, and vpn gateway. See this link http://www.cisco.com/en/US/netsol/ns340/ns394/ns171/networking_solutions_audience_business_benefit0900aecd8009a16f.html

Regards,

Dandy

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