The Cisco ASA 5500 Series
The Cisco ASA 5500 Series includes the Cisco ASA 5505, 5510, 5520, 5540, 5550, 5580, and 5585-X Adaptive Security Appliances-purpose-built, high-performance security solutions that take advantage of Cisco's expertise in developing industry-leading, award-winning security and VPN solutions. Through the Cisco MPF, the Cisco ASA 5500 Series brings a new level of security and policy control to applications and networks. MPF enables highly customizable, flow-specific security policies that have been tailored to application requirements. The performance and extensibility of the Cisco ASA 5500 Series is enhanced through user-installable SSMs. This adaptable architecture enables businesses to rapidly deploy security services when and where they are needed, such as tailoring inspection techniques to specific application and user needs or adding additional intrusion prevention and content security services such as those delivered by the Adaptive Inspection and Prevention (AIP) and Content Security and Control (CSC) SSMs. Furthermore, the modular hardware architecture of the Cisco ASA 5500 Series, along with the powerful MPF, provides the flexibility to meet future network and security requirements, extending the outstanding investment protection provided by the Cisco ASA 5500 Series and allowing businesses to adapt their network defenses to new threats as they arise.
All Cisco ASA 5500 Series appliances offer both IPsec and SSL/DTLS VPN solutions; Clientless and AnyConnect VPN features are licensed at various price points, on a per seat and per feature basis. By converging SSL and IPsec VPN services with comprehensive threat defense technologies, the Cisco ASA 5500 Series provides highly customizable, granular network access tailored to meet the requirements of diverse deployment environments, while providing advanced endpoint and network-level security.
* Cisco ASA 5505 Adaptive Security Appliance
The Cisco ASA 5505 Adaptive Security Appliance is a next-generation, full-featured security appliance for small business, branch office, and enterprise teleworker environments. The Cisco ASA 5505 delivers high-performance firewall, SSL and IPsec VPN, and rich networking services in a modular, "plug-and-play" appliance. Using the integrated Cisco ASDM, the Cisco ASA 5505 can be rapidly deployed and easily managed, enabling businesses to minimize operations costs. The Cisco ASA 5505 features a flexible 8-port 10/100 Fast Ethernet switch, whose ports can be dynamically grouped to create up to three separate VLANs for home, business, and Internet traffic for improved network segmentation and security. The Cisco ASA 5505 provides two Power over Ethernet (PoE) ports, simplifying the deployment of Cisco IP phones with zero-touch secure voice over IP (VoIP) capabilities, as well as the deployment of external wireless access points for extended network mobility. A high-performance intrusion prevention and worm mitigation service is available with the addition of the AIP SSC. Multiple USB ports can be used to enable additional services and capabilities as they are needed.As business needs grow, customers can install a Security Plus upgrade license, enabling the Cisco ASA 5505 to scale to support a higher connection capacity and up to 25 IPsec VPN users, add full DMZ support, and integrate into switched network environments through VLAN trunking support. Furthermore, this upgrade license maximizes business continuity by enabling support for redundant ISP connections and stateless Active/Standby high-availability services.
Businesses can also extend the Cisco ASA 5505's VPN service by enabling AnyConnect client and clientless VPN remote access to support various mobile workers and business partners. The Cisco Secure Remote Access Solution deployments can scale to serve up to 25 AnyConnect and/or clientless VPN concurrent users on each Cisco ASA 5505 by installing an Essential or a Premium AnyConnect VPN license.
This combination of market-leading security and VPN services, advanced networking features, flexible remote management capabilities, and future extensibility makes the Cisco ASA 5505 an excellent choice for businesses requiring a best-in-class small business, branch office, or enterprise teleworker security solution.
