The Cisco ASA 5500 Series includes the Cisco ASA 5505, 5510, 5520, 5540, 5550, and 5580 Adaptive Security Appliances-purpose-built, high-performance security solutions that take advantage of Cisco's expertise in developing industry-leading, award-winning security and VPN solutions.

Through the Cisco MPF, the Cisco ASA 5500 Series brings a new level of security and policy control to applications and networks. MPF enables highly customizable, flow-specific security policies that have been tailored to application requirements.

The performance and extensibility of the Cisco ASA 5500 Series are enhanced through user-installable SSMs. This adaptable architecture enables businesses to rapidly deploy security services when and where they are needed, such as tailoring inspection techniques to specific application and user needs or adding additional intrusion prevention and content security services such as those delivered by the Adaptive Inspection and Prevention (AIP) and Content Security and Control (CSC) SSMs.

Furthermore, the modular hardware architecture of the Cisco ASA 5500 Series, along with the powerful MPF, provides the flexibility to meet future network and security requirements, extending the outstanding investment protection provided by the Cisco ASA 5500 Series, and allowing businesses to adapt their network defenses to new threats as they arise.

All Cisco ASA 5500 Series appliances include maximum IPsec VPN users on the base system; SSL VPN is licensed and purchased separately. By converging SSL and IPsec VPN services with comprehensive threat defense technologies, the Cisco ASA 5500 Series provides highly customizable, granular network access tailored to meet the requirements of diverse deployment environments, while providing advanced endpoint and network-level security.