The Cisco ASA 5510 Adaptive Security Appliance delivers advanced security and networking services for small and medium-sized businesses and enterprise remote/branch offices in an easy-to-deploy, cost-effective appliance. These services can be easily managed and monitored by the integrated Cisco ASDM application, thus reducing the overall deployment and operations costs associated with providing this high level of security. The Cisco ASA 5510 Adaptive Security Appliance provides high-performance firewall and VPN services and five integrated 10/100 Fast Ethernet interfaces. It optionally provides high-performance intrusion prevention and worm mitigation services through the AIP SSM, or comprehensive malware protection services through the CSC SSM. This unique combination of services on a single platform makes the Cisco ASA 5510 an excellent choice for businesses requiring a cost-effective, extensible, DMZ-enabled security solution.

As business needs grow, customers can install a Security Plus license, upgrading two of the Cisco ASA 5510 Adaptive Security Appliance interfaces to Gigabit Ethernet and enabling integration into switched network environments through VLAN support. This upgrade license maximizes business continuity by enabling Active/Active and Active/Standby high-availability services. Using the optional security context capabilities of the Cisco ASA 5510 Adaptive Security Appliance, businesses can deploy up to five virtual firewalls within an appliance to enable compartmentalized control of security policies on a departmental level. This virtualization strengthens security and reduces overall management and support costs while consolidating multiple security devices into a single appliance.

Businesses can extend their SSL and IPsec VPN capacity to support a larger number of mobile workers, remote sites, and business partners. Up to 250 AnyConnect and/or clientless VPN peers can be supported on each Cisco ASA 5510 by installing an Essential or a Premium AnyConnect VPN license; up to 250 IPsec VPN peers are supported on the base platform.

VPN capacity and resiliency can also be increased by taking advantage of the Cisco ASA 5510's integrated VPN clustering and load-balancing capabilities (available with a Security Plus license). The Cisco ASA 5510 supports up to 10 appliances in a cluster, offering a maximum of 2500 AnyConnect and/or clientless VPN peers or 2500 IPsec VPN peers per cluster. For business continuity and event planning, the Cisco ASA 5510 can also benefit from the Cisco VPN FLEX licenses, which enable administrators to react to or plan for short-term bursts of concurrent Premium VPN remote-access users, for up to a 2-month period.