Network Security Cisco ASA 5500

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Questions & Answers

What is the Cisco ASA 5500 Series firewall?

The Cisco ASA 5500 Series is a family of next-generation firewall appliances that deliver integrated stateful inspection, VPN, and intrusion prevention for enterprise and data center networks.

Which models are available in the ASA 5500 Series?

The ASA 5500 Series includes ASA 5505, 5510, 5520, 5540, and 5550 models, each offering different throughput, VPN, and concurrent session capacities to fit small branch to large data center needs.

How do ASA 5500 Series throughput specifications vary by model?

Throughput ranges from 150 Mbps on the ASA 5505 up to 1 Gbps on the ASA 5550, measured under full feature enablement with stateful inspection and IPS.

How many VPN tunnels can the ASA 5500 Series support?

Depending on the model, the ASA 5500 Series supports between 10 and 500 IPsec VPN tunnels and up to 250 SSL VPN sessions concurrently.

What high availability options does the ASA 5500 Series offer?

ASA 5500 Series firewalls support active/standby and active/active failover for seamless redundancy and stateful session sync across appliances.

What are the main differences between ASA 5500 and ASA 5500-X Series?

The ASA 5500-X Series adds FirePOWER services for advanced malware protection and application visibility while delivering higher throughput and more memory compared to the original ASA 5500.

Can Cisco ASA 5500 integrate with FirePOWER Services?

Yes, ASA 5500-X models support Cisco FirePOWER Services modules for next-generation IPS, advanced malware protection, and URL filtering on the same appliance.

Which VPN protocols are supported on the ASA 5500 Series?

The ASA 5500 Series supports IPsec IKEv1 & IKEv2, SSL VPN (AnyConnect), and legacy PPTP for secure site-to-site and remote access connectivity.

How many concurrent sessions can the ASA 5500 handle?

Session capacity ranges from 10,000 on the ASA 5505 to 500,000 on the ASA 5550, supporting large numbers of simultaneous connections.

What management interfaces are available on ASA 5500 Series?

Management options include ASDM (GUI), CLI via console or SSH, SNMP monitoring, and integration with Cisco Security Manager for policy orchestration.

What licensing options are required for advanced features?

Licenses are sold per feature: Security Plus for VLANs and VPN scalability, AnyConnect for SSL VPN, and FirePOWER for intrusion and malware protection.

How do I upgrade the ASA 5500 Series firmware?

Download the appropriate ASA OS image from Cisco.com, upload via TFTP or USB, and run the 'upgrade disk0:' command in privileged EXEC mode.

What are the hardware specifications of the ASA 5500 Series?

Specifications vary by model but generally include multi-core CPUs, 512 MB to 16 GB DRAM, multiple Gigabit Ethernet ports, and optional SSL VPN acceleration.

What is the power consumption of ASA 5500 appliances?

Power draws range from approximately 20 watts for the ASA 5505 up to 250 watts for the ASA 5550 under full load.

Is the ASA 5500 Series still supported by Cisco?

Cisco has announced end-of-sale for original ASA 5500 models, but extended support and software updates are available through Cisco SMARTnet contracts.

How do I configure high availability on the ASA 5500?

Use the 'failover' CLI commands to define primary and secondary peers, assign IP addresses for monitoring, and enable stateful failover for session mirroring.

Network Security Cisco ASA 5500

ASA5520-BUN-K9 (ASA 5520 Security Appliance with SW, HA, 4GE+1FE, 3DES/AES, Cisco ASA 5500 Series Firewall Edition Bundles)

ASA5506-K9 (Cisco ASA 5500-X Next Generation, ASA 5506-X, 8*GE ports, 1GE Mgmt, AC, 3DES/AES, AVC, FirePower, FireSIGHT, unlimited user nodes)

ASA5510-BUN-K9 (ASA 5510 Security Appliance with SW, 5FE,3DES/AES, Cisco ASA 5500 Series Firewall Edition Bundles)

ASA5508-K9 (Cisco ASA 5500-X Next Generation, ASA 5508-X, 8*GE ports, 1GE Mgmt, AC, 3DES/AES, AVC, FirePower, FireSIGHT, unlimited user nodes, 100 IPsec VPN, Active/Active, 80G SSD)

ASA5525-K9 (Cisco ASA 5500 Edition Bundle ASA5525-K9 ASA 5525-X with SW, 8GE Data, 1GE Mgmt, AC, 3DES/AES)

ASA5505-50-BUN-K9 (ASA 5505 Security Appliance with SW, 50 Users, 8 ports, 3DES/AES, Cisco ASA 5500 Series Firewall Edition Bundles)

ASA5505-UL-BUN-K9 (ASA 5505 Security Appliance with SW, UL Users, 8 ports, 3DES/AES, Cisco ASA 5500 Series Firewall Edition Bundles)

ASA5510-SEC-BUN-K9 (ASA 5510 Security Plus Appl with SW, HA, 2GE+3FE, 3DES/AES, Cisco ASA 5500 Series Firewall Edition Bundles)

ASA5550-BUN-K9 (ASA 5550 Security Appliance with SW, HA, 8GE+1FE, 3DES/AES, Cisco ASA 5500 Series Firewall Edition Bundles)

ASA5545-K9 (ASA 5545-X WITH SW 8GBE DATA 1GBE MANAGEMENT AC 3DES/AES)

ASA5505-SEC-BUN-K9 (ASA 5505 Sec Plus Security Appliance with SW, UL Users, HA, 3DES/AES, Cisco ASA 5500 Series Firewall Edition Bundles)

ASA5506-SEC-BUN-K9 (Cisco ASA 5500-X Next Generation, ASA 5506-X, 8*GE ports, 1GE Mgmt, AC, 3DES/AES, AVC, FirePower, FireSIGHT, unlimited user nodes an Security Plus license L-ASA5506-SEC-PL= w/ HA, DMZ, VLAN trunk, more conns.)

ASA5510-SSL100-K9 (ASA 5510 VPN Edition w/ 100 SSL User License, 3DES/AES, Cisco ASA 5500 Series VPN Edition Bundles)

ASA5510-SSL50-K9 (ASA 5510 VPN Edition w/ 50 SSL User License, 3DES/AES, Cisco ASA 5500 Series VPN Edition Bundles)

ASA5516-FPWR-K9 (ASA 5516-X with FirePOWER services, 8GE Data, 1GE Mgmt, AC, 3DES/AES)

ASA5525-FPWR-K9 (ASA 5525-X with FirePOWER Services, 8GE, AC, 3DES/AES, SSD)

ASA5525-K8 (ASA 5525-X WITH SW 8GE DATA 1GE MGMT AC DES)

ASA5525-K7 (ASA 5525-X WITH SW 8GBE DATA 1GBE MGMT AC NPE)

ASA5540-BUN-K9 (ASA 5540 Security Appliance with SW, HA, 4GE+1FE, 3DES/AES, Cisco ASA 5500 Series Firewall Edition Bundles)

ASA5545-FPWR-K9 (Cisco ASA 5500-X Next Generation, ASA5545-FPWR-K9, 8*GE ports, 1GE Mgmt, AC, 3DES/AES, AVC, FirePower, FireSIGHT, unlimited user nodes, 2500 IPsec VPN, Active/Active, 2 SSD)