[c-nsp] FWSM going away rumor

[Dale W. Carder]

On May 7, 2008, at 10:37 AM, Jeff Fitzwater wrote:
> We currently have two FWSM running 3.2 and are awaiting new code to
> fix some transparent mode issues.

I would like to know what you're seeing.

> 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.

Your account team would likely know more, but in my opinion,
5 years without a hardware refresh sure seems awful damning
about the platform's future.

Sure there might be another software release to attempt to
breathe life-support into those network processors, but there
is going to be a finite limit as to what they can and can
not do (example: ginormous ACL's, IPv6, handling huge flows
without significant hackery).

I would expect there will be a strong motivation to develop
software for and sell you shinny new ASA 5580-40's instead
of fwsm.

> The FWSM isn't that old, maybe 2-3 years.
We got our 1st one in early 2003.

> I thought the FWSM was the  latest and greatest and came from
> the ASA.

The FWSM is sort of it's own beast, with hardware assist from
network processors.  The ASA is truly a next-gen PIX.

Dale