The architectures covered by the CSI exam include the "SAFE: A Security Blueprint for Enterprise Networks" and "SAFE: Extending the Security Blueprint to Small, Midsize, and Remote-User Networks" as well as two of the in-depth SAFE whitepapers: "SAFE: Wireless LAN Security In-Depth" and "SAFE: IP Telephony Security In-Depth."
The process of choosing between the integrated functionality of a network device versus a specialized appliance continues throughout the network design process. Whereas integrated functionality is certainly a very attractive prospect because it can be implemented on existing equipment, appliances provide significantly greater depth of functionality when the requirements are advanced and greater performance is required. When designing the reference implementations of the SAFE networks, if the design requirements did not dictate a specific choice, the designers opted to use the integrated functionality of a network device rather than an appliance, to reduce the complexity and the cost of the overall design.
The architecture covered by the CSI exam is based on the blueprint "SAFE: Extending the Security Blueprint to Small, Midsize, and Remote-User Networks" (also known as "SAFE SMR"). This blueprint does not consider redundancy and resiliency as factors but does consider cost-effective security deployment as a factor.