Why haven't enterprises already done defense-in-depth? We found six barriers to pushing firewall technology to the port level. Cost. The cost of adding firewall "brains" to the inside of the network is substantial, especially compared to the continued cost reduction of . . .
Why haven't enterprises already done defense-in-depth? We found six barriers to pushing firewall technology to the port level. Cost. The cost of adding firewall "brains" to the inside of the network is substantial, especially compared to the continued cost reduction of standard networking switches and routers.

Performance. Firewalls have proven themselves on Internet-speed links, but most enterprises have significantly higher flow rates within the network than towards the Internet. Common tasks such as file sharing and backups would bring a firewall designed for Internet speeds to its knees on a 100 Mbps Ethernet link.