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Figure 1. Cisco Adaptive Identification and Mitigation Architecture
Using the powerful policy framework offered by the Cisco ASA 5500 Series, administrators can orchestrate detailed policies that define what specific
services are applied to individual traffic flows. Services include more than 30 different application- and protocol-specific inspection engines, QoS
policies, anti-x services, and other inspection and network services. Policies can be based on numerous criteria, including network addresses, traffic
types, VPN tunnel, and application or destination target. By enabling the selection of specific security or network services on a per-flow basis, this
architecture allows security services to be implemented in a highly granular fashion in support of specific security policies.
REDUCED DEPLOYMENT AND OPERATIONS COSTS
While increasing network security, the Cisco ASA 5500 Series also decreases deployment and operational costs. Its broad VPN and security
services profile makes it a single device for many uses, providing platform and management standardization. It can be deployed as a converged threat
prevention device by using its access control, application inspection, and worm, virus, and other malware mitigation technologies. It can be used as
a dedicated VPN termination device by using its highly scalable site-to-site IPSec and SSL remote-access VPN capabilities. Alternatively, it serves
equally well in the network interior for interdepartmental access control and to guard against worms, viruses, and other malicious code that internal
users may unwittingly bring into a network. In small business and branch office environments, the Cisco ASA 5500 Series serves as an “all-in-one”
solution, offering comprehensive threat prevention and VPN services better suiting the budgets and operational models of such deployments. This
adaptive “single platform, many uses” approach reduces the number of platforms that must be deployed and managed. This common operating
environment also simplifies configuration, monitoring, troubleshooting, and security staff training. To further minimize operations costs, the Cisco
ASA 5500 Series is highly network-aware—it can be inserted gracefully into the network without disrupting legitimate traffic and applications.
Flexible Management Solutions Lower Operations Costs
Cisco ASA 5500 Series adaptive security appliances deliver a wealth of configuration, monitoring, and troubleshooting methods, giving businesses
flexibility to use the methods that best meet their needs. Management solutions range from centralized, policy-based management tools to integrated,
Web-based management to support remote-monitoring protocols such as Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) and syslog. These
appliances additionally provide up to 16 levels of customizable administrative roles, so that businesses can grant administrators and operations
personnel the appropriate level of access to each appliance; for example, monitoring only access, read-only access to the configuration, network
configuration only, firewall configuration only, and so on.
