Cisco ASA 5505 Review – A Reliable Mid-Range Firewall Router

Our Rating : Excellent

5 stars

Description

Whether you need a mid-range router for home or business, the Cisco ASA 5505 Adaptive Security Appliance may suite your needs. Not only can the Cisco asa 5505 be used as a robust firewall, it has many other important uses. You can configure it to prevent intrusions, as a VPN (Virtual Private Network), as a remote access point and more.

The ASA 5505 is an 8-port, fast ethernet switch. It supports two SSL VPN peers and 10 IPsec VPN peers. Additional VPN options include…DMVPN, L2TP, AnyConnect and others.

When it comes to home use, it appeals to both networking professionals as well as hobbyist. If you manage similar appliances on the job, a personally owned ASA 5505 can provide you with a stable test-bed device on which you can test different configurations.

If you are a professional and hobbyist like myself, it’s a match made in heaven. Not only is the Cisco ASA 5505 easy to configure, as part of the Cisco 5500 series, it has a well-deserved reputation for reliabilty.

Cisco ASA 5505 Features, Capabilities and Benefits

The ASA 5505 offers you a convenient form factor. It can be used as a high-performance standalone appliance.

The 5500 series has a proven track record as a highly effective intrusion prevention system (IPS). This is accomplished with the use of Cisco Global Correlation.

You get high-performing VPN and remote access connections. This means fewer dropped data packets and high-security communications.

Optionally, you can enable antivirus, antispam, antiphishing, URL blocking and filtering, and content control.

When first released, the Cisco ASA5505 sold for $1000 to $1300. Now you can get new units for under $400 and excellent condition used units for under $300.

At current pricing levels, this security appliance represents an excellent value. Visit the ASA 5505 product page for more information about pricing.

Reviews

Gavin S.

“I’ve bought three of these things so far, two as firewalls for our Internet connections at work and one at home to replace a succession of apparently disposable Linksys routers.

This is the $1000 version that we use for the work firewalls, but the $400 entry level version is what I have at home and I love having the same enterprise-class security and monitoring features at home that we have at work.

The 5505 in its various license levels is the entry to the Cisco ASA family of security appliances. It runs the same software as the high end models that cost thousands of tens of thousands of dollars. It’s a very versatile system that gives you a lot of flexibility as a firewall, and a point-to-point IPSec tunnel, as well as a remote access VPN server.”

SamSpade

“I use this firewall at my home. Probably overkill, but it had what I wanted. Nice that it runs the same operating system as the larger enterprise size firewalls. The configuration is easy using the intuitive wizards and the GUI. Command line options are easy if you are familiar with Cisco CLI. Built in switch with PoE makes for nice addition. A little on the pricey side for your average home user, but great price point for business users in SOHO environment.”

John EH

“Very stable. Many home and even business grade Firewalls will occasionally start acting up and have to be rebooted, but the ASA is completely solid.

Supports Spanning Tree and Rapid Spanning Tree, allowing you to build redundant uplinks to STP compatible switches. The 256 MB RAM and 128 MB of flash is plenty of Memory for future software.

High learning curve, especially if you don’t have previous experience with Cisco PIX or routers. Even using the Java-based ASDM, it can take a few hours of training to find your way.”

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