ASA 5545 CX or IPS Module

[smartin]

Little confused when researching the ASA5545.

What would be the benefit of going with the CX module compared to the classic IPS module ? Can both do signatures ? 

[Marvin Rhoads]

Both get signatures from Cisco's SIO.

Classic modules allow more granularity of control and creation of custom signatures. They also allow non-inline (IDS only) deployments, can be managed by CSM, scale to higher throughput (and are thus better suited for data center deployments) and larger enterprise size deployments (>25 units).

The CX-based IPS is better integrated with WSE and AVC, provides more of a holistic one-stop approach, and can also leverage SSL decryption policies to inspect the payload.