Why is it that developers want to turn your firewalls into routers?

I spent a good part of my afternoon trying to convince some developers that the IIS web server should be separated from the rest of the databases (think “confidential information” here). In the event that the web server (which speaks to the Internet) gets rooted, the attacker is right next to the crown jewels. At least if there is a firewall in the way, he’s got more work to do, and more chance that he’ll trip an alarm.

In the end, we compromised. Still not happy, but tradeoffs have to happen.