The Cisco ASA (Adaptive Security Appliances) 5500 series of products provide combined firewall protection and VPN capabilities (both SSL and IPsec in the same appliance). The multiple models available in the series cover a range of deployment scenarios from SMBs to large data centers. High-availability deployments are supported in all of the models either optionally (5505/5510) or standard, with both active/standby and active/active configurations offered (the 5505 offers only stateless active/standby redundancy). Management of the appliance is via the included Cisco Adaptive Security Device Manager, which is a browser-based GUI capable of managing a single appliance; or the vendor's separately available Cisco Security Manager and/or MARS (Security Monitoring, Analysis, and Response System) platforms for the management/control of multiple (up to thousands) Cisco devices.

As far as the firewall is concerned, the appliances build on the vendor's Cisco PIX technology and include such features as a transparent Layer-2 firewall; identity or network-based access control policies (integration with MS A/D, LDAP, Kerberos, and RSA SecurID); application-layer protection for apps including Web apps, E-mail, video, and VoIP; and network address translation.

For the VPN, both IPsec and SSL VPN connections are supported (each of the appliances bundles 2 SSL VPN licenses for evaluation), with SSL connectivity supported in both clientless (portal-based) and client-based configurations (policy-based depending on the user group or accessing endpoint). Client-based connections leverage the vendor's automatically downloaded Cisco AnyConnect VPN Client.

Selected models in the family (5510, 5520, and 5540) additionally include a Security Services Module expansion slot enabling the addition of intrusion prevention (via the vendor's Advanced Inspection and Prevention Module), anti-virus, anti-spyware, and file blocking features (via the vendor's Content Security and Control module), or additional Gigabit Ethernet ports. The latter module includes a total of 8 Gig Ethernet ports (4 copper, 4 fiber) up to 4 of which may be used concurrently in any combination.

Models currently offered in the ASA 5500 Series product line include:

- 5505, with max firewall throughput of up to 150 Mb/sec, max VPN throughput of up to 100 Mb/sec, and a maximum of 25 SSL VPN connections

- 5510, with max firewall throughput of up to 300 Mb/sec, max VPN throughput of up to 170 Mb/sec, and a maximum of 250 SSL VPN connections

- 5520, with max firewall throughput of up to 450 Mb/sec, max VPN throughput of up to 225 Mb/sec, and a maximum of 750 SSL VPN connections

- 5540, with max firewall throughput of up to 650 Mb/sec, max VPN throughput of up to 325 Mb/sec, and a maximum of 2,500 SSL VPN connections

- 5550, with max firewall throughput of up to 1.2 Gb/sec, max VPN throughput of up to 425 Mb/sec, and a maximum of 5,000 SSL VPN connections

- 5580-20, with max firewall throughput of up to 6.5 Gb/sec, (5 Gb/sec with "real world HTTP" transactions, and 10 Gb/sec using jumbo frames), max VPN throughput of up to 1 Gb/sec, and a maximum of 10,000 SSL VPN connections

- 5580-40, with max firewall throughput of up to 14 Gb/sec, (10 Gb/sec with "real world HTTP" transactions, and 20 Gb/sec using jumbo frames), max VPN throughput of up to 1 Gb/sec, and a maximum of 10,000 SSL VPN connections. The 5580-40 additionally supports up to 2 million firewall connections (1 million in the 5580-20).

The newest entries in the family, the 5580-20 and 5580-40 additionally feature the vendor's NetFlow v9 technology, with new extensions added specifically for security events.

Finally, also available in the family (and also new) is the 5580-20 Remote Access VPN Concentrator, which combines the 5580-20 appliance with a 10,000 user SSL VPN license.

The Cisco ASA 5500 Series appliances are available now. Pricing is listed at $49,995 for the 5580-20, and $99,995 for the 5580-40. The 5580-20 VPN concentrator is listed at $20/user.

Visit the vendor's Web site for further information.