Cisco ASA 5505 Pre-Purchase Questions
Hi,
I have a Pix 501 that I am thinking should get retired and upgrade to an ASA 5505. Small shop of 10 computers four of which are servers. I am looking at Ebay to save money (no deep pockets here !).
I am thinking of going with the security plus. Why not ? Better DMZ capabilities. Might be over-kill in this situation but I would rather have the increased capabilities from the get go as it would probably be more expensive to add them later. Agree ?
I think most of the 5505's come with 512 MB of RAM. I have seen a couple at 1 GB. Is 512 enough ? I see you can buy DIMMs for these. Has anyone every opened these up to add more memory ? Flash seems to be 128 MB.
Anyone put a AIP-SSC-5 card in one of these ? Looks like you can do a lot with it. The $1200-1500 price tag is a little steep though.
Some listings have something like V09 when describing the product. What exactly is that ? Are there different iterations of the 5505 ? I know it came out in 2006.
I see some Cisco routers or other gear have come out that they have privacy issues and auto-upgraded their firmware on them. I have not heard that of this device. Anyone heard similar comments of the 5505 ?
Anything you want to add go ahead. I looked at SonicWall and WatchGuard but I don't know if I want a monthly fee for a firewall. If I have problems programming I can get help so not afraid of working with the ASA.
Thanks for your assistance. I am close to putting in an order !
I have a Pix 501 that I am thinking should get retired and upgrade to an ASA 5505. Small shop of 10 computers four of which are servers. I am looking at Ebay to save money (no deep pockets here !).
I am thinking of going with the security plus. Why not ? Better DMZ capabilities. Might be over-kill in this situation but I would rather have the increased capabilities from the get go as it would probably be more expensive to add them later. Agree ?
I think most of the 5505's come with 512 MB of RAM. I have seen a couple at 1 GB. Is 512 enough ? I see you can buy DIMMs for these. Has anyone every opened these up to add more memory ? Flash seems to be 128 MB.
Anyone put a AIP-SSC-5 card in one of these ? Looks like you can do a lot with it. The $1200-1500 price tag is a little steep though.
Some listings have something like V09 when describing the product. What exactly is that ? Are there different iterations of the 5505 ? I know it came out in 2006.
I see some Cisco routers or other gear have come out that they have privacy issues and auto-upgraded their firmware on them. I have not heard that of this device. Anyone heard similar comments of the 5505 ?
Anything you want to add go ahead. I looked at SonicWall and WatchGuard but I don't know if I want a monthly fee for a firewall. If I have problems programming I can get help so not afraid of working with the ASA.
Thanks for your assistance. I am close to putting in an order !
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ASKER
After doing some shopping I am thinking that I will go with a base model. The base handles 100 Mbps and I am currently on 12 Mbps. The base handles quite a few simultaneous connections so even if my media server gets bombarded I should be fine. Having only 10 machines won't matter as they are not all running at the same time anyway.
I have to go to used unit to get a security plus license at a reasonable cost. A lot of sellers don't even know how old the units are and I am not comfortable taking a unit that might already have had a good amount of wear and tear. I will say that my Pix has been running 24x7x365 for seven years and may be I reset it 12 times in that span.
I can't see myself going to crazy with vlans or trunking. I can have a DMZ if I choose.
I might as well save the money and buy a new unit around $300 !
I have to go to used unit to get a security plus license at a reasonable cost. A lot of sellers don't even know how old the units are and I am not comfortable taking a unit that might already have had a good amount of wear and tear. I will say that my Pix has been running 24x7x365 for seven years and may be I reset it 12 times in that span.
I can't see myself going to crazy with vlans or trunking. I can have a DMZ if I choose.
I might as well save the money and buy a new unit around $300 !
ASKER
Thanks !
ASKER
I never paid for the Cisco Software Assurance program so that is why the Pix I have is pretty out-of-date. If you do that the ASA will be pretty cheap compared to the SonicWall ! Perhaps I should buy it and do a better job keeping an ASA up-to-date.
I like the idea of programming a firewall myself and very big on privacy. I don't know if I want the device tied closely to the manufacturer like SonicWall and WatchGuard seem to be to their devices.
Thank you for your good information.