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We have 2 Firebox 1250e Core firewall boxes in our production environment, serving as an active and passive mode. A few months back, the active box was flashing a warning light, so our consultant removed it, and plugged it in to a test network. Everything appeared to be working fine, so he reloaded it into the production environment, and we didn't see any other issues.

Fast forward to last week, and out network was constantly dropping connections over RDC, timing out, and performing as if there was a traffic issue. I turned off the production box and everything began to work fine immediately. At this point though, I'm not sure how to proceed. Should the box be completely replaced? Is there any recommended testing we could do to determine if there is a failure of some type with this device? Should we try upgrading the software on it? I know the environment isn't the issue, since the passive box (which is now the active one) is working fine. We'd like to have 2 in production though for safety failover purposes.

I am not a network admin, but am hoping someone here might be able to provide some guidance.

Noah
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1 Answers1

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Do you have any support contract for that box? How old are the two appliances? Are they still supported by their vendor? Do you, or anyone else in your company, have a good technical knowledge of them? Was that consultant just called on the spot, or is he usually working with your company? Last but not least, does your budget allow for replacing the failing box, or both of them with another solution if needed?

These are just some questions you should ask in order to find the better option here.

That said, I'd check if there is an available firmware update for the appliance, and/or if it can be reset to factory defaults and reconfigured as needed. This may very well be a software problem.

Massimo
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  • We don't have a support contract for the box anymore. Both of them are 2 years old, but still supported by the vendor. I've actually brought in our networking contractor to take a look. They believe it may not be the Firebox after all, but the switch port that the firebox is plugged into. We are exploring that option now, as well as getting upgrade pricing for the latest firmware. – Noah May 27 '10 at 13:45