Cisco ASA

[agapitca19]

Hi,

What does SSP(Security Services Processor) do and the significance of the number next to it like in ASA 5585-X SSP-10,20,40,60.

Thanks!

[Marvin Rhoads]

The SSP is where the CPU complex of the ASA 5585-X resides. The various ones you mentioned proviode 4, 8 16 and 24 cores respectively. See figure 2 here:

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/security/asa-5585-x-adaptive-security-appliance/whitepaper_C11-731802.html

They provide higher throughput as you move up the line. This is because the ASA software is multicore-aware (SMP in the image name stands for Symmetric MultiProcessor) and divides the workload across the cores.