Cisco 5505 Replacement Now Available



As of February 2015, you might have noticed a new Product SKU in CCW. The new Cisco ASA 5506-X has arrived. What does this new model bring and is it the only new offering in the ASA line?

What's new?

FirePOWER services, that's what. SOHO's and SMB's can now take advantage of NGFW offerings like AVC, IPS, URL Filtering, and AMP. While licensing costs remain the same regardless of model (after all it is a subscription based service with no relationship to ASA model), there are some caveats to be aware of. You will have the option of choosing two methods of managing FirePOWER services

- On-Box Management
- Off-Box Management

On-Box Management: As with it's predecessor CX (w/ Prime Security), the new 5506-X will house FireSIGHT Management Center (FMC) on-box. However, the caveats being various lacking features as opposed to the off-box FMC Virtual and Physical Appliances.

Off-Box Management: There are multiple options for off-box management and which option you choose will be based on the number of ASA appliances you wish to manage.

Is that it?

No, Cisco have upped the ante even further by introducing multiple SOHO/SMB ASA options. In case the 5506-X is lacking in performance or features, then how about one of the following models?

Cisco ASA 5506W-X

This should peak some interest again in the SOHO space in particular. For those wishing to implement a wireless solution at the office without the need for multiple pieces of hardware. Welcome the 5506W-X with an integrated wireless access point. The Access Point is based on the 702I access point. You now have edge security, application visibility and wireless covered with just one device. Nice!

Cisco ASA 5508-X (1U Rack Mount Model)

This model brings about higher performance than the 5506-X variants. Once the new data sheet becomes available, we can get a good look at what kind of performance metrics we can expect from this new model and get an idea where it fits in our customer base.

Cisco ASA 5506H-X Ruggedized

Ruggedized? What? Yes, for those Industrial sites that require ruggedized equipment due to various environmental variables. We welcome the 5506H-X which appears will come in a larger ruggedized chassis and will most definitely be appealing to high temperature and SCADA based environments etc.


 Misc. Thoughts

It looks like 9.4(1) code is on the horizon and some exciting new capabilities are looming, an interesting one to note is PBR (Policy Based Routing) capabilities.

Once all details become public knowledge I will update with data sheet information and differences in feature sets between on-box vs off-box FMC management.


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