The Cisco ASA 5500 Series includes the Cisco ASA 5510, 5520, and 5540 adaptive security appliances—three purpose-built, high-performance
security solutions that leverage Cisco Systems expertise in developing industry-leading and award-winning security and VPN solutions, and integrate
the latest technologies from Cisco PIX?
500 Series Security Appliances, Cisco IPS 4200 Series intrusion prevention systems, and Cisco VPN 3000
Series concentrators. By combining these technologies, the Cisco ASA 5500 Series delivers an unmatched, best-of-breed solution that stops the
broadest range of threats and provides businesses with flexible, secure connectivity options. As a key component of Cisco Systems Adaptive Threat
Defense and Unified Secure Access strategies, the Cisco ASA 5500 Series converges a wide range of security and VPN technologies to provide rich
application security, anti-x defenses, network containment and control, and secure connectivity.
The extensible Cisco AIM services architecture and the flexible multiprocessor design of the Cisco ASA 5500 Series enable it to provide
unprecedented performance for multiple concurrent security services while delivering exceptional investment protection. Each Cisco ASA 5500
Series platform combines multiple high-performance processors that work in concert to deliver rich application security services, anti-x defenses,
scalable IPSec and SSL VPN services, and more. Businesses can add other high-performance security services, such as intrusion prevention services
and advanced anti-x services by installing a Cisco ASA 5500 Series advanced inspection and prevention SSM (AIP-SSM). This flexible design
makes the Cisco ASA 5500 Series uniquely capable of adapting to new threats, protecting against the fast evolving threat environment, and providing
exceptional investment protection through its use of programmable hardware to ?future proof? the platform for years to come. The combination of
these high-performance, market-proven security and VPN capabilities, along with integrated Gigabit Ethernet connectivity, and a diskless, flashbased
architecture, make the Cisco ASA 5500 Series an ideal choice for businesses requiring a best-of-breed security solution with high performance,
flexibility, reliability, and investment protection.