Firewall Designer.com

The Benefits

Conventional firewalls are managed individually, you describe what sort of data is allowed to cross the firewall using a notation or tools specific to that firewall product. Ie Cisco equipment uses access lists programmed using the Cisco IOS operating system, and Linux computers typically use iptables (or ipchains) using tools and editors on the machine.

This is fine, providing :

• Your firewalling requirements are very simple - which they never are
• Your network requirements never change - which they always do and
• Your staff are knowledgeable in the specific firewalling product - which they sometimes are

In the real world security is very important, mistakes and errors in the configuration of a single firewall can leave a company vulnerable to attack. So it is actually very important that firewalls are configured correctly. FDT is a tool that allows an organisation to describe and apply a security policy across its entire organisation, that is machine neutral, simple to use and provably correct.