SE Labs Awards AAA Rating to Cisco Secure Firewall 4225

While Pushing the Boundaries in Firewall Performance Testing

SE LABS Ⓡ, the cyber security testing authority, announced today its report of Cisco Secure Firewall 4225 following an evaluation that takes industry standards on firewall performance testing to a new level.

In the first public firewall performance test carried out by SE Labs, the company’s analysis showed that Cisco Secure Firewall 4225 was able to handle realistic traffic loads optimally with its security features enabled. Its performance in pure HTTP and HTTPS throughput tests was even stronger, and web traffic latency uniformly excellent.

In developing the test, SE Labs used recommendations made by the Internet Engineering Task Force for testing the performance of network security devices such as next-generation firewalls. The lab team then ran an extended set of tests to check how the Cisco device would behave in a more realistic environment with mixed traffic protocols and specific services.

“At SE Labs we use our expertise to design and implement tests that deliver real-world insight into security products. For example, a device might achieve a strong performance when handling Voice over IP, but in real-life the human ear might struggle with sub-par connection quality. That type of detail isn’t always apparent in a straightforward performance test,” says Simon Edwards, founder and CEO of SE Labs. “Cisco is to be congratulated on achieving an AAA rating in what is one of our most advanced tests to date.”

While several vendors have undertaken this test in the past, Cisco is the first to allow its results to be made public. The difficulty of achieving the SE Labs AAA rating should not be underestimated. SE Labs extended tests require the device to check, track and respond to large numbers of different types of connections, and latency is measured in more than one way. This is a test that has found fault with a significant number of products in private evaluations.

“SE Labs rigorous evaluation provides users with so much more information than a simple firewall performance test. The results stand as clear validation of our firewall’s capacity to provide robust, uncompromising security without sacrificing the speed and operational efficiency that modern businesses require,” says Pramod Chandrashekar, VP of Engineering, Cisco.

The 30Gbps-rated Cisco Secure Firewall 4225was able to handle realistic traffic loads optimally, managing 25Gbps. In pure HTTP and HTTPS throughput tests things looked even stronger, moving HTTP traffic at 57Gbps and HTTPS traffic at 32Gbps. Web traffic latency was uniformly excellent for both HTTP and HTTPS traffic.

For more information on how the test was conducted read Next Generation Firewall Performance Test Goes Beyond Basic Benchmarks on SE Labs’ blog. The full report: Advanced Performance Test Report: Cisco Secure Firewall 4225 can be downloaded for free from SE Labs’ website.