New Firewall Module for 6500s

[rmerritt]

We are considering FWM for 6500s as we have several companies wishing to connect at gigabit speeds. I understand the scenario but what I am concerned about is virus protection. In this scenario, I would have two 6506s with FWM. I would span VLANs to go through the FWMs. How do I keep viruses out from organizations I have no control over?

[hampton]

this really doesn't have much to do with the FWM per say. You would still need to get some sort of virus filter (TrendMicro VirusWall or the like) to do the virus filtering. The PIXOS does not have any virus filtering in it (though you can block ActiveX type stuff)

There are some firewalls with built-in virus scanning of some types of traffic (Sonicwall for example) as well, but I can not attest to whether or not they'll work for you or not. We currently use Trend's VirusWall UX to filter all email and it's stopped a ton of viruses. I'm not really that worried about web downloaded viruses as much as email borne. Or you could just stop using MS outlook/word/excel/etc. ;)

[rmerritt]

Thanks. I have come to the same conclusion. Our present email virus scanners and desktop scanners are all we will need until something new comes along.