The Cisco Security Products Portfolio offers a wide diversity of products with an equally wide range of features and functionality. Consequently, the network architect gains an unusually high level of flexibility in the products that are available to satisfy any particular security requirements that are needed in a design.
Common factors affecting the choice of products in any design are as follows:
Cost
Size of network
Functionality
Manageability
Scalability
Customer requirements
Network architects consider these factors when choosing products to meet a specific customer requirement. For example, if a customer requires an Internet connection with firewall capability, the network architect can use either a Cisco IOS Firewall router solution or an independent Internet router with a standalone PIX firewall. The choice is dictated by budget, customer specifications, and various other design criteria.