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Cisco Secure Firewall ASA Virtual - PAYG

Cisco Systems, Inc.

Reviews from AWS customer

25 AWS reviews

External reviews

55 reviews
from and

External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.

    Felipe Muñoz Ramos

We need help to upgrade to the version of the ASA OS that currently is on version 7.16 and an upgrade to version 9.14(2)8 is required

  • December 20, 2022
  • Review from a verified AWS customer

We request your important support to review the causistry of updating the VPN services found in AWS, we have 6 C5xlarge with images of Cisco Secure Firewall ASA Virtual - PAYG which we require to upgrade to the version of the ASA OS that currently is on version 7.16 and an upgrade to version 9.14(2)8 is required

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    reviewer1884756

Provides great security for our applications

  • June 15, 2022
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

We use them for site-to-site VPN solutions as well as other VPN activities, and for general application security.

We needed a good VPN solution and, as our network grew, we had more applications that were virtualized and that can be spun up. We needed a solution that would keep us ahead.

How has it helped my organization?

Cisco ASA provides great security for our applications.

What is most valuable?

One of the best features is the ease of use. It's also easy to teach new engineers to use the ASA CLI. When I first started learning firewalls, Cisco was the first one that was taught to me and it was pretty easy to grasp. When I'm teaching other engineers to use Cisco ASAs, the results of their learning are immediate.

What needs improvement?

It needs to provide the next-generation firewall features that other vendors provide, like data analytics, telemetry, and deep packet inspection.

Also, the ASAs need to be improved a little bit to keep up with the demand for high bandwidth and session count applications.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Cisco ASAs for about 11 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's reliable. It doesn't have all the features of some of the newer firewalls, but it's very reliable. It doesn't break. It's pretty rock-solid.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have at least a pair in every one of our data centers. We gateway our applications around the firewall system, meaning all application data goes through firewalls.

How are customer service and support?

We have good support from Cisco for the ASAs. That helps us out a lot. Some of our ASAs are pretty old and technically not supported anymore, but TAC always helps us out.

How was the initial setup?

The initial one, for me, was a little bit complex because I hadn't done it before. It was inline and an active/standby pair, so it involved a little bit more than just deploying one firewall.

We had some documentation written and we tested it in the lab and then the deployment took about four hours.

We deployed it alongside different solutions and then we cut over to it when it wouldn't impact the customers.

The maintenance involves doing code upgrades periodically to keep up with the security environment requirements. One person handles that.

What about the implementation team?

We deployed with a consultant from Cisco support. Our experience with them was good. They provided a lot of documentation ahead of time to help us with our configuration.

From our side there were two people involved. One was doing the configuration and the other person was checking to make sure there were no errors, looking at IPs and the like.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The licensing is straightforward and simple, so we don't have to keep relicensing every year as we do with other applications.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We use Juniper as well.

    Mohammed T.

CISCO ASAv review

  • May 28, 2022
  • Review provided by G2

What do you like best about the product?
A virtual firewall solution that supports all the recommended security features from traffic inspection to VPN and can be deployed on a private cloud or in the public cloud
What do you dislike about the product?
configuring some of the features using the command line can be challenging, and cisco ASDM sometimes can be difficult to use because it depends on the Java version being installed on your device
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
I needed a virtual solution that can be deployed locally or in the cloud that can offer site-to-site and remote VPN connections

    Cisco AnyConnect issue

Cisco AnyConnect package is missing

  • September 24, 2021
  • Review from a verified AWS customer

We have subscribed "Cisco Adaptive Security Virtual Appliance (ASAv) - Standard Package" from AWS Marketplace and launched new machine but we are unable to retrieve the Cisco ASAv license so that we can contact Cisco. Basically we need "Cisco AnyConnect Package 2.5 or later".

When we try to log a case with cisco it asked for login but we have purchased this aws marketplace. We don't have any login id for cisco ASAv which we have taken from aws.

Someone please help.

    Canadian

Not available in your Geo Location

  • February 04, 2021
  • Review from a verified AWS customer

I'm in Canada and I can't use this? Seriously? This seems like a extremely short sighted decision to limit this subscription.

    Rohit

Incomplete Steps - Unable to Download AnyConnect Software

  • October 30, 2020
  • Review from a verified AWS customer

I am a new Cisco customer, and want to use the standard package for testing purposes. I do not need it to be active all the time and that is I why selected this option.

However, I have not been able to download the AnyConnect software to test RA-VPN. It asks me for a contract and I do not have one.

I just do not know how to get it. Very frustrating. I have opened a case with Cisco but they do not seem to know what to do either.

    Rainer Aus

Disappointing performance.

  • May 27, 2020
  • Review from a verified AWS customer

We are running asav9-13-1-7 on c5.2xlarge and we are not happy with the value. As we are using the appliance for SSLVPN, we primarily need to scale in terms of concurrent users. The "box" looked very promising by its featureset (10G interfaces and 10K concurrent users supported) at launch but in reality the setup seems to only scale to appr 1500 users (Cloudwatch metrics show instance cpu flat around 90% with only 1200 users and 2Gpbs of total VPN traffic).

Is there a way to improve somewhat (would also be good to have a performance prediction by Cisco) via implementing support for c5.4xlarge instance?

    Vikram A.

Performance-wise, it is top-notch. However, it is a bit tough to navigate and see what is going on.

  • January 16, 2019
  • Review from a verified AWS customer

For the AWS version, Cisco is our primary use. We have our own appliances and products, which are indicated as Cisco ASA. So, we test these product against Cisco ASA using different types of rules for new cases. During the test process, we make sure the integration works.
We have been using the solution for two years.
How has it helped my organization?
Right now, it serves a purpose and has everything that we need. Performance-wise, it is top-notch.
What is most valuable?
It is a comprehensive suite and complete package. We have the following with the product:
* Interest point detection
* Firewall stuff
* VPN
* It's configurable.
* It guards with its own threat intelligence.
We find that virtual instances are helpful because they are easy to use on AWS Marketplace, as they are On Demand. We have a lot of traffic on AWS. Therefore, to monitor the traffic rather than using on-premise, we use virtual instances of Cisco ASA. This is pretty easy to use and we receive value off of it.
What needs improvement?
Cisco ASA should be easier to use. It is a bit tough to navigate and see what is going on. While I like the UI and dashboards of Cisco ASA, if you compare them to Palo Alto or Fortinet, they have much richer UIs. An analyst (or anyone) can see them, and say, "I have got all these important pointers on my dashboard." However, with Cisco ASA, we need to dig into many things and go to many views to see what is actually there.
For how long have I used the solution?
One to three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable. We put a good amount of stress on it.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Especially for the AWS version, we can spin up multiple instances and do load-balancing.
We have 15 to 20 Cisco ASA switches with a couple of physical appliances and twelve machines. Our team is using four to five machines.
How is customer service and technical support?
It is all self-guided, and we were already using the physical appliances. Therefore, we knew how to use the product.
What was our ROI?
Our individual release cycle has been quicker because the entire development and testing environment has been automated because of these virtual instances. It has aligned our development workflow. This is where we have seen the ROI increase.
For example, if you are working with a physical appliance, then you need to have a dedicated lab administrator to work with it, even to test a simple use case. This takes time because we would need to frequently reset that appliance and load all the data. It is no longer like that.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Purchasing from the AWS Marketplace was easy. It was just point and click.
It is pay-as-you-go, so it much cheaper than buying in the plants.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We also checked Fortinet and Palo Alto, their AWS versions.
When compared products, Cisco ASA is easy on AWS. We received a trial version. It is easy to setup and evaluate.
We also already had Cisco products. This provided a tighter integration with what we already had. Since most of our traffic stays in AWS, it made sense to use AWS Cisco ASAv.
What other advice do I have?
Once you deploy a virtual database or virtual machine for any product, like Cisco. The first thing to do with your data is test it. So, you need to be prepared with the test that you want to test before you deploy the instances. Because after deploying instances, you wait and see what the data come back with, how to configure it, and review what doesn't work. Therefore, you need to do some background homework before starting, such as what type of data you need to put into it, how to test it, and will the system process it.
We have used both the on-premise and AWS version. We started using AWS in the past six to seven months. Prior to that, we used the on-premise version. The AWS version is better as it is quick to spin up and configure. Also, with AWS, everything is preset, and it is more flexible.

    Aimee W.

Keeps costs low and provides granular control using appliances familiar to the team

  • January 15, 2019
  • Review from a verified AWS customer

Whatever you have that’s potentially public-facing, you need to protect it. As our technology moves to the cloud, so our need for security transfers from physical appliances to virtual ones. This is the classic Cisco ASA device, virtualised.
How has it helped my organization?
Ease of spinning one up: The hourly charge has made demos and testing better because it’s a truer representation of a real-life situation.
It has allowed us to reduce costs and to make sure we provide rounded, secure products to customers.
What is most valuable?
Top features:
* Easy to deploy for staff to use VPNs
* Ease of setup
* Integrated threat defence
* Great flow-based inspection device
* Easy ACLs
* Failover support
* Each virtual appliance is separate so you get great granular control
* Has own memory allocation
* Multiple types of devices: 100 Mbps, 1 Gbps, 2 Gbps
* License control
* SSH or RESTful API
What needs improvement?
We didn’t find any huge issues. Obviously, there are always vulnerabilities that come up and there was one in early 2018 but this was patched with software updates.
Admin rights need to be given out carefully as they give overarching control to all devices - but that’s the same for everything.
How was the initial setup?
We went with this solution via the AWS Marketplace because it’s been made so easy to use an ASAv on AWS with simple drop downs to set it up. Our demo machines were also in AWS so we wanted a one-stop shop where we could spin them up or down as needed and configure the ASAv before it was launched.
What other advice do I have?
Almost all IT staff have used, or can easily learn how to use, the Cisco ASA appliance because it’s been around for years and is so popular (with good reason). For us, we stuck with what we know. It was an easy sell to get it signed off by higher-ups as they’d also heard of the ASA device from their time in IT.

    Accounting

ASA 55xx

  • January 02, 2019
  • Review provided by G2

What do you like best about the product?
Robust Speed, amazing security and performance.
What do you dislike about the product?
Not enough options through web interface / ASDM
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
We are using ASAv on multiple instances within our data center
Recommendations to others considering the product:
Great TAC support feature. Real time troubleshooting and assistance with configuration

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