Firewall vs L3 Switch

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BTR

1522 posts

Uber Geek

#233348 12-Apr-2018 11:37

I was have a conversation earier today about IPv4 ACL and it was suggested that its better to do this on a switch opposed to a firewall.

For example if I had two VLANs, VLAN 1 and VLAN 2 and I wanted to allow some traffic from V1 to V2 but block other traffic that I would be better off using a L3 switch to do this rather than a firewall.

PS when I am talking about firewalls I am talking abouter enterprise grade equipment not a small home internet router.

Im interested to know peoples thoughts on this.

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tatbaird

135 posts

Master Geek

#1994740 12-Apr-2018 11:45

Well, this peoples thoughts would be, it depends. If all you want to do is allow only certain traffic between VLANs then all you need is a switch with some ACLs on it. A firewall just does ACLs as well though, but it will handle a lot more than that if you want it to. You could just use an IOS based firewall for basic stuff or for branch sites.

chevrolux

4570 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1994787 12-Apr-2018 12:45

It's got to depend mainly on topology right. If you have a remote branch that has a L3 switch installed, might as well use a local ACL on that switch to allow routing between the VLANs. No sense having traffic routed via a firewall back at HQ.

Then by extension of that, you would employ the same solution at the HQ so as to keep everything similar in terms of what core or edge devices do.

MattHNZ

24 posts

Geek

#1994788 12-Apr-2018 12:49

How much traffic are you looking at passing through your network?

Keep in mind that an ACL on a switch is normally done in hardware (providing line rate throughout). Where as most firewalls the traffic processing is done through the CPU.

If you have a busy firewall box doing all sorts of other things like DPI, SSL inspection and stuff like that. You might want to keep the load down on your FW and do the ACL on a core switch.