Taking Firepower Forward is an acronym used to describe a number of features and improvements in Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) products. This includes the Firepower Device Management Center, a freestanding web GUI for the FTD appliance. The Firepower Management Center also allows users to perform high-availability configurations for the device and determine better failover interfaces. In addition, Cisco Live announces a number of new products and feature enhancements for Firepower Threat Defense, including the next generation firewall.
A good example of the Firepower Device Management Center is the “fail-to-open” feature, which allows users to determine whether or not the device can open a connection. Firepower’s logging tab is also a key component in this functionality. The “show” command provides a list of the last few packet inputs to the device and a list of the last few packets to be received by the device. The logs can also be viewed in the internal event viewer. Similarly, the “show service-policy” command displays the incoming and outgoing traffic that matches the configured rule.
Similarly, the Firepower Device Management Center features an “Interface Monitoring” page. This feature allows users to view the initial high-availability configuration of the device. It also allows users to edit Failover Trigger Criteria and determine the best failover interface for their particular environment. The Firepower device management center also includes an “Event logging” page, which logs data to an external Syslog. Another example is the “Http Response” page, which enables users to see a web page if the device blocks an HTTP request. In addition to the standard “Http” page, the “show” command displays a page that enables users to see if the device is blocking any HTTP traffic.
The “show” command also allows users to see the most important thing that Firepower can do for them. This is the “fail-to-close” feature, which allows users to determine whether the device can close a connection. This feature is akin to the “fail-to-open”feature, but enables users to see the output of all traffic destined for the device. It is also possible to show a user the most successful inspection that the device performed. The output will display the successful inspection, and will also show the failed-to-close output, indicating which rule was failed to close.
The “show” command also allows a user to debug the traffic flowing through the device. The “show” command allows a user to view the output of all traffic destined for the Firepower device, allowing users to see if the device is receiving the correct traffic. The “show” command also allows a users to display the most successful inspection that the Firepower device performed. The “show” command also allows ASA users to view the output of all traffic destined to the device, allowing users to see if any traffic destined for the device was successful.
While there is no denying that Firepower has its limitations, it does have some impressive feats of engineering. In particular, the Firepower device management center is a must-have for any FTD user.
