Home / server / Questions / 438800
In Process
user72593
Asked: 2012-10-16 22:42:54 +0800 CST

Will a Cisco ASA 5505 on a Gigabit Network slow my traffic?

  • 772

I have a network consisting of a single server and a dozen workstations which connect through a Gigabit switch, I want to bring internet connectivity to the network so I got an ASA 5505 but didn't consider its lack of Gigabit throughput. I'm not fully versed on the flow of network traffic either so my question is...will the workstations continue to communicate with each other and the server at Gigabit speed or will all traffic flow through the ASA and get cut down to 100mbit?

Thanks for any insight you guys can provide.

cisco

1 Answers

  1. The workstation & servers are still uplinked to the 1Gb switch so they will still continue to have a speed of 1Gbit to the switch.

    in this scenario you won't have any issues:

    | ISP POP |<->| ASA 5505 | -----> #GBITSWITCH# ---> CLIENTS & SERVER

    edit: I should explain myself a bit further,

    since the ASA is a firewall, only incoming (and outgoing) traffic will go through it. All traffic from client to server will be "routed" by the switch only by means of the switch using its own ARP table to perform the routing.

    The firewall appliance won't be used at all.

    If however you later on add a server in a DMZ (behind the firewall) and you allow internal servers to access the "remote" DMZ server then off course as this traffic will pass through the firewall you will be cut down to 100Mbit on that operation / link only.

    Your internal LAN will continue to operate at 1Gbit

    • 1