Cisco ASAv500 Full English Product Description
1. Short Official License & Part Label
ASAv500 / L-ASA-V-500S-K9=: Cisco Secure Firewall ASA Virtual 500 Flagship Premium Virtual Firewall, Licensed for 100 Gbps Maximum Stateful Inspection Throughput, 32 vCPU / 128GB Dedicated VM Memory, Smart Software Subscription License, SR-IOV Virtual NIC Hardware Offload, Private Hypervisor Exclusive (VMware ESXi / KVM), Full ASA Enterprise Security Stack, Massive VPN Capacity, Virtual Clustering & Active/Active HA Support, Optimized for Hyperscale On-Prem SDDC & Carrier MSSP Multi-Tenant Workloads
2. Full Product Overview
Cisco Secure Firewall ASAv500 (Adaptive Security Virtual Appliance 500) is Cisco’s top-tier, highest-throughput ASA virtual firewall entitlement, engineered exclusively for hyperscale private software-defined data centers (SDDC), carrier-grade multi-tenant MSSP security nodes, ultra-large enterprise internet border gateways, and high-volume east-west virtual workload segmentation.
As a pure software virtual security appliance, ASAv500 delivers complete feature parity with physical Cisco ASA hardware, enabling consistent unified security policy orchestration across physical and virtual infrastructure without rack-mounted security hardware. This flagship license tier unlocks up to 100 Gbps multiprotocol stateful inspection throughput, supporting tens of millions of concurrent stateful sessions and massive-scale remote access & site-to-site VPN tunnels for global distributed workforce and inter-site enterprise backbone connectivity.
The ASAv500 fully supports SR-IOV hardware passthrough vNICs, dedicated vCPU pinning, multi-queue tuning and CPU core isolation to eliminate virtualization overhead and sustain wire-rate bulk encrypted traffic under peak production loads. It adopts Cisco Smart Software Licensing with flexible term-based subscription entitlements (L-ASA-V-500S-K9=). Unified administration is available via local ASDM GUI, CLI console, RESTful API, Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center (FMC) and Cisco Defense Orchestrator for automated multi-instance orchestration across on-prem virtualized infrastructure.
Key Limitation: ASAv500 entitlement isnot supported on any public cloud platforms (AWS/Azure/GCP/OCI)and only runs on VMware ESXi and KVM private hypervisors.
3. Virtual Machine Hardware Resource Specifications
Mandatory VM Resource Allocation for Full 100Gbps Licensed Throughput
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Virtual CPU: Minimum 32 dedicated pinned vCPUs (mandatory to hit full licensed throughput ceiling; max supported 64 vCPUs for maximum scaling)
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System Memory: Minimum 128GB dedicated VM RAM; maximum supported 128GB for VMware ESXi / KVM hypervisors
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Storage: Minimum 120GB high-performance thin-provisioned virtual disk for OS, configuration backups, persistent event logs, security signature cache and forensic records
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Supported Hypervisors: VMware ESXi 7.x / 8.x, KVM (OpenStack);Public Cloud, Hyper-V Not Supported
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Virtual NIC Compatibility: vmxnet3, ixgbe, SR-IOV hardware passthrough vNICs for ultra-low-latency traffic offloading
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Max Virtual Interfaces: Up to 64 vNICs for multi-segment network isolation and multi-context segmentation
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VLAN Capacity: Up to 1024 VLAN tagged subinterfaces
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Jumbo Frame Support: 9000 MTU for high-volume data center and storage workloads
Official ASAv500 Licensed Performance Benchmarks
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Maximum Stateless Firewall Throughput: 150 Gbps
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Multiprotocol Stateful Inspection Throughput (FW+NAT+AVC): 100 Gbps
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IPsec VPN Encrypted Throughput (AES-256): Up to 40 Gbps
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Maximum Concurrent Active Stateful Connections: 24,000,000
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New Connections Per Second: 1,500,000
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Max Site-to-Site IPsec VPN Peer Tunnels: 60,000
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Max AnyConnect Secure Client SSL VPN Remote Access Sessions: 120,000 simultaneous users
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Max Independent Multi-Context Logical Firewalls: 250 isolated security contexts for multi-tenant isolation
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Hardware TLS/SSL Decryption Throughput: Up to 36 Gbps for bulk encrypted application traffic
4. Complete Core Security Feature Suite
1. Enterprise-Grade Stateful Next-Generation Firewall Controls
Full Layer 3–4 stateful packet inspection, static/dynamic NAT, PAT, NAT64/NAT46 dual-stack translation, granular object-group ACL policy management, Layer 7 application filtering, URL reputation filtering, traffic policing and QoS bandwidth shaping. Native dual-stack IPv4/IPv6 support with dynamic routing protocols including OSPF, EIGRP, BGP and static routing, plus zone-based segmentation for virtual workload isolation.
2. Scalable End-to-End VPN Services
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Site-to-Site IPsec IKEv1/IKEv2 tunnels with AES-256 encryption, tunnel load balancing and redundant peer failover
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AnyConnect SSL VPN remote access with full tunnel split tunneling, clientless web VPN and secure mobility for global remote staff
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VPN clustering for centralized gateway consolidation across multi-branch global enterprise networks
3. Multi-Instance Multi-Tenant Virtualization
Isolated logical security contexts for MSSP multi-customer segmentation or enterprise department separation. Each context runs independent routing tables, access control policies, VPN configurations and logging, with configurable resource quota limits to eliminate cross-tenant resource contention and performance interference.
4. High Availability & Virtual Resilience
Active/Standby and Active/Active stateful failover HA pairs with full session synchronization to avoid connection drops during VM failure or maintenance. Supports cross-instance virtual clustering for linear throughput scaling across up to 16 ASAv500 nodes, compatible with hypervisor high availability clusters for zero service interruption.
5. Traffic Visibility, Logging & Compliance
Real-time traffic monitoring via ASDM graphical management console; secure syslog, SNMP v2c/v3 and NetFlow Secure Event Logging (NSEL) export to third-party SIEM platforms. Persistent audit logging meets strict regulatory requirements for PCI DSS, HIPAA, GDPR and global enterprise compliance frameworks.
6. DevOps Automation & Centralized Orchestration
Local CLI console and ASDM GUI for single-instance administration; RESTful API for automated VM provisioning, policy push and lifecycle management. Unified cross-platform policy deployment, logging and reporting via Secure Firewall Management Center (FMC); centralized license entitlement tracking via Cisco Smart License Manager.
5. Primary Deployment Scenarios
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Hyperscale SDDC north-south internet border ultra-high-throughput security gateway for large private data centers
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Massive-scale virtualized data center east-west traffic segmentation between virtual server workloads
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Premium ultra-high-capacity MSSP multi-tenant virtual security inspection nodes with isolated multi-context domains
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Global enterprise headquarters centralized remote access SSL VPN gateway supporting over 100,000 distributed employees
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Large-scale global branch consolidation, replacing dozens of physical ASA hardware units with pooled virtualized security capacity
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Low-latency inline virtual security deployments leveraging SR-IOV hardware offload for wire-rate bulk encrypted traffic processing
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Carrier central office virtualized security gateways for high-volume subscriber traffic inspection
6. Short Sales Listing Tagline
Cisco ASAv500 Secure Firewall Flagship Premium Virtual Firewall, Licensed for 100Gbps Multiprotocol Stateful / 150Gbps Stateless Firewall Throughput, Requires 32 vCPU / 128GB VM RAM, Smart Software License L-ASA-V-500S-K9=, VMware ESXi & KVM Hypervisors Only, 120,000 Concurrent AnyConnect VPN Sessions, 250 Multi-Context Multi-Tenant Isolation, SR-IOV Low-Latency Acceleration, Active/Active HA & Multi-Node Virtual Clustering, REST API & FMC Centralized Management, Hyperscale Private Data Center & Carrier MSSP Ultra-High-Capacity Virtual Security Gateway
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