ASA 5515 with and without SSD

[Amit Mahajan]

Hi, My client wish to order

ASA5515-K9 [Cisco ASA 5515-X Firewall Edition; includes firewall services, 250 IPsec VPN peers, 2 SSL VPN peers, 6 copper GE data ports, 1 copper GE management port, 1 AC power supply, 3DES/AES encryption]

and after couple of years want the same ASA to be used as Next Generation Firewall with IPS ,AVC and WSE,

1) -Can he upgrade? if yes what all part codes he needs to buy in future?

2)Is ASA5515-IPS-K9 a Next generation FW? where does it store its signature database? does it contain have 120SSD drive? if no can we add ssd drive to it later?

3)what are the major differences between ASA5515-K9 and ASA5512-SSD120-K9?

thanks in advance,

regards,

amit

[Marvin Rhoads · Accepted solution]

1. Yes one can upgrade if the 5500-X series was not purchased with the SSD. The SSD hardware option would need to be purchased (ASA5500X-SSD120=). Then you would need to add the associated license. There are several available and they are as listed in the product data sheet. (Bottom half of table 4.)

2. The IPS mdel you asked about has the classic Cisco IPS engine running on a dedicated service module. The base 5515-X is a NGFW but the IPS would not generally be considered next generation. It stores the signature database locally on the module. Without the SSD120 and AVC/WSE services added, the NGFW classification of the ASA is a bit on the light end - ie. some of the identitity features added in 8.3 and not a whole lot else next-gen-wise.

3. The latter inlcudes the SSD120 solid state drive hardware. You need to have either purchased it up front as a bundle or by adding the part number I  noted in 1) above in order to install and run the NGFW services (AVC, WSE and the Next Gen IPS).

[Amit Mahajan]

Thanks Marvin! appreciate your help.

[Syed Farhan Ali]

Dear Marvin,

Can you please some links from Cisco extending the answer to question number 2.

If there are no links, please elaborate the response so we have a clear understanding of the feature differences between the two.

Appreciate your advise.

Regards,

Farhan.