Cisco announces the ASA 5500, multi-function network security device

Cisco Systems'' answer to this conundrum is the Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) 5500 series. Cisco created the ASA 5500 to address both the growing dangers of network threats and the increasing costs and complexities of protecting networks against those threats.

The ASA 5500 series is the industry''s first full-featured, converged, multi-function network security device. The ASA encompasses the industry-leading capabilities of Cisco''s firewall, virtual private network (VPN), intrusion prevention, and network anti-virus technologies. But the ASA 5500 goes far beyond the sum of its parts. By combining all these technologies into one device, the ASA 5500 can provide unprecedented coordination of the security efforts for each of these technologies. http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2005/ts_050305.html?CMP=ILC-001