Cisco ASA 5540 Firewall appliance is geared towards large enterprises which need firewall throughput of 650Mbps. The ASA 5540 is the highest model that supports a Security Services Module (SSM) in order to offer Content Inspection or Intrusion Prevention IPS services to the network. The SSM module can host also a four-port Gigabit Ethernet card, in addition to the Content Inspection or IPS modules. The higher-end models 5550 and ASA 5580 DO NOT support the SSM module. Note also the greatly enhanced number of supported VPN sessions (5000 or 2500 for SSL VPN) compared with smaller models. This enhancement makes the Cisco asa 5540 ideal for replacing the older VPN 3000 Concentrator device.
The features of the ASA 5540 in more detail below:
More Cisco ASA Related:
Cisco ASA 5520 Basic Configuration Guide
Site-to-Site IPSEC VPN between Two Cisco ASA 5520
The Way to Activate Your Cisco ASA 5500
Cisco ASA5510 Vs ASA5512-X or Cisco 5515-X
The features of the ASA 5540 in more detail below:
- Maximum firewall connections:400,000
- Maximum firewall throughput (Mbps): 650 Mbps
- Max Packets per second (64 byte): 500,000
- Maximum firewall connections/second: 25,000
- Maximum 3DES/AES VPN throughput: 325 Mbps
- Maximum site-to-site and remote access VPN sessions: 5000
- Maximum SSL VPN user sessions: 2500
- Memory: 1 GB
- System Flash: 64MB
- Integrated ports: 4-10/100/1000 + 1-10/100
- Maximum VLANs: 200
- SSM Expansion Slots: 1 SSM module
- Intrusion Prevention: Supported (with AIP SSM)
- Content Security (anti-virus, anti-spyware, file blocking): Supported (with CSC SSM)
- Latest Software version:8.2 (as of April 2009)
- Application-layer firewall services: Supported
- Layer 2 transparent firewall: Supported
- Security contexts: 2 (Included), 20 (Maximum, with license)
- GTP/GPRS inspection: Supported (needs license)
- High availability support: Active/Active, Active/Standby
- SSL and IPsec VPN services: Supported
More Cisco ASA Related:
Cisco ASA 5520 Basic Configuration Guide
Site-to-Site IPSEC VPN between Two Cisco ASA 5520
The Way to Activate Your Cisco ASA 5500
Cisco ASA5510 Vs ASA5512-X or Cisco 5515-X