Cisco® ASA 5500 Series Adaptive Security Appliances are purpose-built solutions that combine best-in-class security and VPN services with an innovative, extensible services architecture. Designed as a core component of the Cisco Self-Defending Network, the Cisco ASA 5500 Series provides proactive threat defense that stops attacks before they spread through the network, controls network activity and application traffic, and delivers flexible VPN connectivity. The result is a powerful multifunction network security appliance family that provides the security breadth and depth for protecting home office, branch office, small and medium-sized business, enterprise, and data center networks while reducing the overall deployment and operations costs and complexities associated with providing this new level of security.

The Cisco ASA 5500 Series delivers a powerful combination of multiple market-proven technologies in a single platform, making it operationally and economically feasible for organizations to deploy comprehensive security services to more locations. The comprehensive portfolio of services within the Cisco ASA 5500 Series enables customization for location-specific needs through tailored product editions for small to medium-sized businesses and for enterprises. These editions enable superior protection by providing the right services for the right location. Each edition combines a focused set of Cisco ASA 5500 Series services (such as firewall, SSL and IPsec VPN, IPS, and content security services) to meet the needs of specific environments within the enterprise network. By ensuring the security needs of each location are met, the overall network security posture is raised.

Cisco ASA 5550 Adaptive Security Appliance
The Cisco ASA 5550 Adaptive Security Appliance delivers gigabit-class security services with Active/Active high availability and fiber and Gigabit Ethernet connectivity for large enterprise and service-provider networks in a reliable, 1-rack-unit form factor. Using its eight Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, four Small Form-Factor Pluggable (SFP) fiber interfaces, and support for up to 200 VLANs, businesses can segment their network into numerous high-performance zones for improved security.

The Cisco ASA 5550 Adaptive Security Appliance scales with businesses as their network security requirements grow, delivering exceptional investment protection and services scalability. Businesses can scale their SSL and IPsec VPN capacity to support a larger number of mobile workers, remote sites, and business partners. Businesses can scale up to 5000 SSL VPN peers on each Cisco ASA 5550 by installing an SSL VPN upgrade license; 5000 IPsec VPN peers are supported on the base platform. VPN capacity and resiliency can also be increased by taking advantage of the Cisco ASA 5550's integrated VPN clustering and load-balancing capabilities. The Cisco ASA 5550 supports up to 10 appliances in a cluster, supporting a maximum of 50,000 SSL VPN peers or 50,000 IPsec VPN peers per cluster. Using the optional security context capabilities of the Cisco ASA 5550 Adaptive Security Appliance, businesses can deploy up to 50 virtual firewalls within an appliance to enable compartmentalized control of security policies on a per-department or per-customer basis, and deliver reduced overall management and support costs.