Analysis of Performance and Efficiency of Hardware and Software Firewalls

Abstract

Abstract Firewalls are key elements of network security infrastructure. They should guarantee the proper level of security and, at the same time, the satisfying performance in order to not increase the packet delay in the network. In the paper, we present the comparative study on performance and security of a few firewall technologies including hardware, software and virtual solutions. Three important criteria are considered: the maximal throughput of firewall, the introduced delay and the ability to resist Denial of Service attacks. We report results of experiments, present analysis and formulate a few practical conclusions.