ASA 5508-X AnyConnect Free Connections Image

[dctcadmin]

Greetings all

After reading posts similar to this one: https://community.cisco.com/t5/vpn-and-anyconnect/asa-5505-free-inbuilt-anyconnect-licensing/td-p/3316063, I'm left in the same boat but still having questions.

Our 5508-X has a value of 4 for AnyConnect Premium Peers. I'm assuming this means that we can have four concurrent users for AnyConnect on this device. However, when I'm trying to setup AnyConnect on the device, I'm being prompted for an AnyConnect image, which I assume is the one that will be given to users when they attempt to establish a connection. When I log into my Cisco account to get the AnyConnect image, I'm being told that the contract that our device is under lacks entitlements to download the AnyConnect image, ergo I have no AnyConnect image to provide to the ASA.

Is there something that I'm missing here? I was under the impression that one could at least leverage a few free connections via AnyConnect before needing to acquire more, but if I can't even get the AnyConnect image from the Cisco site, how am I to accomplish this configuration?

[Rahul Govindan]

With the change in the licensing from the AnyConnect Essentials/Premium model to the AnyConnect Plus/Apex model, there is no longer a 'free' way to use AnyConnect on the ASA - even with a small user count of 4 or less. Previously, the AnyConnect Premium and Essentials licenses were tied to a single ASA and there was no restriction of who can download the image from the Cisco download page. This meant that you could still download and use AnyConnect on the ASA with that free license tier of 2 licenses with any purchase made. Now, you need to buy the Plus or Apex Licenses for the total Authorized VPN count in your network in order to be able to download the image from Cisco. The free licenses on the ASA means nothing if the AnyConnect image cannot be uploaded. I believe the free license section on then ASA is just a remnant from the old licensing system.