support of Multiple ISP's in Cisco ASA 5520 1

[krishnagondi]

Hi,

1) Does cisco ASA 5500 models support Multiple ISP providers?
2) What is Active/Active & Active/Standby in Cisco ASA 5500?

Thanks,

Siva

 

[qtin]

Don't take this a gospel since I have only had my ASAs out of the box for a couple days:
1 - Yes, multiple ASAs can provide support for multiple providers.

2 - In simplistic terms, Active/Active provides load balancing between the 2 devices and is available only in multiple context mode, however you can not run the ASAs as a VPN concentrator while in multiple context mode.

Active/Standby does not allow for load balancing.

 

[g0atbailey]

The Cisco ASA can have up to 4 networks connected to it (public or private). The problem we ran into with two ISP's, is that the ASA will not do any load balancing between the two ISP's. You could set up static routes, but that could be a nightmare. We bought an Astrocom PRO100 WAN aggregator to solve the problem. It has the ability to load balance up to 16 ISP's for incoming and outgoing traffic. There tech support will help you configure it for free. We got a 30 day free evaluation from them before we purchased it. The ASA is a great appliance, but load balancing is something it won't do.