ASA 5512-X Vs. 5516-X

[jairreal8]

Good day to all,

I'm being asked to recommend the purchase of an ASA for firewall, IPS, and VPN services with the most users count of 400 users out of which 100 clients would use AnyConnect VPN at most. We currently have an ASA 5512-X in production at one of our sites which its sole function is to terminate VPN tunnels for AnyConnect remote clients and it has been working well without any hiccups.

When I reached out to a Cisco partner, I was asked to consider a 5508-X or a 5516-X because as they stated it, the EOL for the ASA 5512-X would come in much sooner than the other two models.

Now even if that were true, while looking at a document posted on another discussion (link below), I saw that the 5516-X is considered a Low-End appliance while the 5512-X is considered a Midrange appliance. Could someone please explain why this is? Being that the 5516-X handles higher connections, higher throughput, it has more memory, and higher specs overall across the board and the only factor I could find where the 5512-X is superior is that it is rated to work at an operating altitude of 15,000m.

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/security/asa-5500-series-next-generation-firewalls/datasheet-c78-733916…

[miras]

I would like to know the answer to this one too. My guess is that when the 5512-X got spec'd out, 5506-X, 5508-X and 5516-X weren't around and it has been left like that.

Let's here from the experts.

[dastuart]

Correct guys - those 'mid-range' vs. 'low-end' descriptors do not reflect in the product specifications which you can rely on - it was more because of a Cisco categorization that was in effect at the varying time those products were introduced.  

[Dennis Perto]

5512-X was indeed mid-range when it was introduced. That is not the case anymore, as we now have a new low-end series that are better than the first generation X-series mid-range.