Cisco ASA5510 Vs ASA5512-X or 5515-X

The Cisco ASA product line for small and branch offices includes 4 ASA models:

• ASA5505 (either Basic License or Security Plus License)
• ASA5510 (either Basic License or Security Plus License)
• ASA5512-X (either Basic License or Security Plus License)
• ASA5515-X

In this article I will describe the main differences between the ASA5510 and the newest generation ASA5512-X and ASA5515-X models. I have chosen these 3 models because Cisco ASA5512-X and 5515-X are recommended by Cisco as replacement models for the older 5510 firewall which will reach end-of-sale on September 16, 2013.

Specifically, Cisco recommends the following hardware migration path for the models above:

As you can see above, both the 5510 and the 5512-X are offered with two types of licenses: Basic License (this is the default license type when you purchase) or a Security Plus License which costs extra money. On the other hand, the ASA5515-X comes with a single default license (there is no security plus license on this model).

The Security Plus license on the 5510 and 5512-X allows some enhancements such as additional VLANs (from 50 to 100), additional concurrent firewall sessions (on the 5510 model) etc. The most notable improvement offered by the Security Plus license on both 5510 and 5512-X is the device Failover support. It allows the devices to work in Active/Active or Active/Standby failover. This feature is not supported on the Basic license. (The 5515-X supports A/A and A/S failover by default).

The table below shows the most important differences between ASA5510 and 5512-X / 5515-X appliances.

Regarding network interfaces, the 5510 basic license supports only FastEthernet (10/100 FE) interfaces while the 5512-X and 5515-X support Gigabit (10/100/1000) copper interfaces. So, if you are migrating the configuration of an ASA5510 to a new 5512-X or 5515-X you need to take into consideration the interface command syntax.

The interface configuration of these devices will look like the following:

ASA 5510 Interface Configuration

! Physical Interface
interface Ethernet0/1
nameif inside
security-level 100
ip address 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0

! Creating Subinterfaces on interface E0/2
interface Ethernet0/2
no nameif
no security-level
no ip address
no shutdown

interface Ethernet0/2.10
vlan 10
nameif fw-out
security-level 50
ip address 172.16.61.1 255.255.255.0

ASA 5512-X or 5515-X Interface Configuration

! Physical Interface
interface GigabitEthernet0/1
nameif inside
security-level 100
ip address 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0

! Creating Subinterfaces on interface GE0/2
interface GigabitEthernet0/2
no nameif
no security-level
no ip address
no shutdown

interface GigabitEthernet0/2.10
vlan 10
nameif fw-out
security-level 50
ip address 172.16.61.1 255.255.255.0

So as you can see if you are migrating from 5510 to 5512-X or 5515-X you should change the commands on the interface configuration syntax. Other than the above, almost all the other core firewall commands will be the same. If you are interested, the article here shows a basic ASA 5510 configuration.