How important is it to connect a FireWall to a server? Datacenters often offer hardware or even software firewalls for a charge, often not small. If it really is such an important aspect, wouldn't it be possible to install a firewall oneself (with root access)?
Yes it is possible to install a sftware fire wall yourself with root access. If you are using Linux I can recommend APF firewall. Also if the server is a cpanel server WHMext will give you a graphical interfact to administer APF from. We also install the BFD (Brute Force Detector) addon to APF on all our servers.
