[c-nsp] FWSM going away rumor

[Justin M. Streiner]

On Wed, 7 May 2008, Jeff Fitzwater wrote:

> We currently have two FWSM running 3.2 and are awaiting new code to
> fix some transparent mode issues.

What transparent mode i ssues are you seeing?  We run many FWSMs in 
transparent mode on 3.2(4) code and it's pretty stable.  The only nagging 
issue that's causing us grief is related to global service policies.

> The rumor I heard is that CISCO will only have one more release of
> FWSM code and thats it;  No more FWSM, the future will only be the ASA.

I don't know where that rumor came from but AFAIK it's totally untrue.
I've be working closely with our account team on requests for feature 
enhancements in future versions of the code.  There are nice new features 
on their way in the 4.0 release train and beyond, but I can't go into 
details because much of it is still under NDA.

> The FWSM isn't that old, maybe 2-3 years.   I thought the FWSM was the
> latest and greatest and came from the ASA.

The ASA 5580 is the newest beast, but I see the FWSM continuing to fill a 
role for a long time.  I only wish it directly supported landing IPSEC 
tunnels...

jms