how do Cisco Secure Access Control System work ? are they similar to servers ?

[dolanduck.]

The reason ask because while i was studying for the CCNA some people mention that its a great way to add tacacs and radius and some other features, but are they similar to servers like hp proliant ml350 ?

[Georg Pauwen]

Hello,

to start out with, Cisco Secure ACS is end of sale as of, I think, 2017. It has been replaced with Cisco ISE. That said, you could have gotten ACS in three flavors: as a hardware appliance, similar to a blade server, as an application running on a Windows server, or as a dedicated virtual machine.

Have a look at the link below:

https://geek-university.com/ccna-security/what-is-cisco-acs/

[dolanduck.]

sorry i was away. OK the reason i ask was because there was one for sale and i want by to learn to use tacacs+ or radius. and i was confused because it says no hard drives installed and do i have to buy the operating system from Cisco for it to work ? or is it like a firmware installed already.  

[Georg Pauwen]

Hello,

can you post the link to the sale ad ? Logically I would say, a hardware appliance without hard drives cannot have anything including ACS installed. I would ask the seller what he (or she) is actually selling...

[dolanduck.]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Cisco-CSACS-1121-K9-Secure-Access-Control-System-2-66GHz-No-HDD-Great-Condition/283447692320