Field Upgradable ASA 5500-X firewalls?

[robert.horrigan]

Is the 5512 able to be field upgraded to a 5515 and so on through 5555?  I.E. Can I add ram and other hardware to make the boxes more powerful as my requirements increase?  I was hoping this would have been a new feature with the ngen firewalls.

[Jouni Forss · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Heres a simple datasheet of the ASA 5500-X series.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/vpndevc/ps6032/ps6094/ps6120/at_a_glance_c45-701635.pdf

I dont think you will be abble to increase the performance of the devices other than for maybe the addiotional memory (which benefits might be questionable) or enabling some license based service on the ASA.

This would include atleast

• VPN capabilities
• IPS
• Failover (not 100% sure on this. Is it still the same with the new X-models)
• Virtualization (though the datasheet doesnt talk about Security Contexts at all like the old 5500 Series did?)
• etc

I imagine some of the limitations of the ASA are also set permanently even though they could perhaps support more than the datasheet says.

One example is probably the connection limit which simply stops new connections though I doubt that it couldnt handle more

- Jouni

[Jouni Forss]

Heres a couple of links to Licensing

General information on the 5500-X series

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/asa/asa84/license/license_management/license_86.html#wp1991422

IPS

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/vpndevc/ps5729/ps5713/ps4077/data_sheet_c78_459036.pdf

- Jouni

[robert.horrigan]

I figured.  My whole gripe with the ASA line is that the diversity is not nessesarily a good thing (there's so many appliances!).  I'd rather see one chassis that can be upgraded as needed.  It's why I almost always see either a 5520 or 5580 and rare that I see anything inbetween except at maybe very small branch offices.