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Should I provide my own firewall protection in a colocation environment?

Yes. Despite most colocation centers have their own core firewall, customers can provide their own firewall in a colocation environment in order to obtain a higher level of security. Providing your own dedicated firewall you’ll have better control over your server.

On customer’s request, Go4hosting also provides a fully managed firewall, like – Cisco or Customized Policies, as a managed service. Additionally, we install customized hardware and software as per the requirement and demand made by the customers.

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You may choose to skip installing your own colocation firewall because the host’s is good enough to tackle any threat likely to threaten your system. In my opinion, you should get in touch with the host and clarify whether he is indeed providing a firewall or just a bare-bone network.

If it’s the latter, go and configure your own firewall and if the host is ready to provide one, do not overburden yourself and let go off the thought.

However, there’s flip side to the coin too –
Some hosts’ colocation firewall may not be as good as their hosting firewall, so get the same clarified. Second, if you choose to have another firewall, your network will become painfully slow. Firewalls take time to scan networks and the more layers of firewall that you have, the slower your network will become. It’s the paradox you cannot escape.

I have had two firewalls on my network and never felt like they have slowed my web server. I have instead enjoyed the added security and almost never had any attack on my server. I think there is a good reason that you adopt the same.