Cisco extends self-defence

Cisco Systems has extended it Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) series by introducing two products aimed at the opposite ends of the business market.

The ASA 5505 targets the remote office and teleworkers, as well as and small and medium enterprise (SME) markets, while the ASA 5550 is designed for large enterprises.

"The ASA 5505 enables SMEs to benefit from a unified threat management solution at the same cost as firewall protection only," Philippe Roggeband, Cisco security product manager for Europe and emerging markets, told a media briefing in London.

Both appliances are core components of the Cisco`s initiative to help make self-defending networks (SDNs) a reality, which the company claims is a security industry goal shared across the globe.

"The new products are designed to enhance proactive threat defence to prevent attacks from spreading through networks, as well as reduce the complexity and operational costs of security appliances," says Roggeband.

Although aimed at the lower-end of the market, Roggeband says the ASA 5505 is designed to provide high-performance security services for next-generation broadband environments. He says it is capable of delivering 150Mbps of firewall throughput and 100Mbps of encrypted virtual private network (VPN) throughput.

The ASA 5505 also features an integrated 8-port Ethernet switch that supports the creation of multiple security "zones" for different type of connectivity and two built-in power-over-Ethernet ports in a compact desktop form factor.

According to Roggeband, the 5550 extends the ASA firewall and IP security (IPsec) / secure sockets layer (SSL) VPN services to support large-enterprise network environments.

He says it can deliver more than 1.2Gbps of firewall throughput and can support 200 virtual local-area networks, enabling businesses to segment a network into numerous zones for improved security.

It offers scalable VPN services, supporting as many as 5 000 IPsec and SSL VPN clients per appliance.