Cisco ASA 5550 Adaptive Security Appliance

The Cisco ASA 5550 Adaptive Security Appliance delivers gigabit-class security services with Active/Active or Active/Standby high availability, and fiber and Gigabit Ethernet connectivity, for large enterprise and service-provider networks in a reliable, 1-rack-unit form factor. Using its eight Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, four Small Form-Factor Pluggable (SFP) fiber interfaces*, and support for up to 200 VLANs, businesses can segment their network into numerous high-performance zones for improved security.

The Cisco ASA 5550 Adaptive Security Appliance scales with businesses as their network security requirements grow, delivering exceptional investment protection and services scalability. Businesses can scale their SSL and IPsec VPN capacity to support a larger number of mobile workers, remote sites, and business partners. Up to 5000 AnyConnect and/or clientless VPN peers can be supported on each Cisco ASA 5550 by installing an Essential or a Premium AnyConnect VPN license; 5000 IPsec VPN peers are supported on the base platform. VPN capacity and resiliency can also be increased by taking advantage of the Cisco ASA 5550's integrated VPN clustering and load-balancing capabilities. The Cisco ASA 5550 supports up to 10 appliances in a cluster, supporting a maximum of 50,000 AnyConnect and/or clientless VPN peers or 50,000 IPsec VPN peers per cluster. For business continuity and event planning, the ASA 5550 can also benefit from the Cisco VPN FLEX licenses, which enable administrators to react to or plan for short-term bursts of concurrent Premium VPN remote-access users, for up to a 2-month period.

Using the optional security context capabilities of the Cisco ASA 5550 Adaptive Security Appliance, businesses can deploy up to 100 virtual firewalls within an appliance to enable compartmentalized control of security policies on a per-department or per-customer basis, and deliver reduced overall management and support costs.

Note: The system provides a total of 12 Gigabit Ethernet ports, of which only 8 can be in service at any time. Businesses can choose between copper or fiber connectivity, providing flexibility for data center, campus, or enterprise edge connectivity.

Table 5 lists features of the Cisco ASA 5550.

Table 5. Cisco ASA 5550 Adaptive Security Appliance Platform Capabilities and Capacities

Feature	Description
Firewall Throughput	Up to 1.2 Gbps
VPN Throughput	Up to 425 Mbps
Concurrent Sessions	650,000
IPsec VPN Peers	5000
Premium AnyConnect VPN Peer License Levels¹	2,10, 25, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1000, 2500, and 5000
Security Contexts	Up to 100
Interfaces	8 Gigabit Ethernet ports, 4 SFP fiber ports, and 1 Fast Ethernet port
Virtual Interfaces (VLANs)	400
Scalability	VPN clustering and load balancing
High Availability	Active/Active², Active/Standby