CISCO ASA5515-IPS-K8 ASA 5500-X Series Firewalls

ASA5515-IPS-K8 Exact IPS Edition

ASA5515-IPS-K8 is a physical Cisco ASA 5515-X IPS Edition appliance in the DES-license edition. Cisco's ordering table identifies the IPS Edition separately from the Firewall Edition; the PID alone does not prove a current IPS subscription term.

Hardware identity

Cisco documents 6 copper Gigabit Ethernet data ports, one copper Gigabit Ethernet management port and one AC power supply for this platform. The family data sheet lists up to 250 IPsec peers, which is a historical scale value rather than a current performance or support guarantee.

Encryption suffix boundary

K8 identifies the DES-limited export edition. It is not the K9 3DES/AES edition and should not be accepted as evidence of modern encrypted-tunnel capability.

Lifecycle decision

Cisco lists August 31, 2022 as the last date of support for ASA 5515-X. A present-day purchase requires an exception, configuration-recovery plan and funded migration.

Branch IPS exception control

ASA5515-IPS-K8 is a six-data-port IPS Edition with DES-limited encryption. Restrict its role to a dated legacy exception and prevent new VPN or application dependencies.

Inventory branch circuits, zones, policy owners and IPS alerts. Move encryption-dependent services first, then convert only the still-required inspection rules to the supported replacement.

Branch flow ownership table

Document source, destination, application, NAT behavior, IPS action and business contact for every retained branch flow. Add last-observed traffic and event dates so dormant rules are reviewed rather than migrated automatically. The acceptance test must include central logging, time synchronization, configuration restore and a simulated failure of the circuit or successor path.

Remote-site maintenance plan

Plan this six-port branch migration around physical access and circuit recovery. Record cable labels, provider handoff, local contact, console method, spare power path and the exact action that returns traffic to the prior device. Pre-stage addressing and routes without connecting overlapping interfaces, then use a short validation sheet that a remote technician can execute without interpreting security policy. The central engineer separately checks NAT translations, tunnel status and IPS events. Close the visit only after out-of-band access, clock synchronization and log delivery survive a reboot; otherwise retain a scheduled follow-up rather than normalizing an unmonitored exception.

Related ASA IPS Edition records

• ASA5515-IPS-K9 - compare chassis scale, IPS Edition identity and encryption suffix.
• ASA5555-IPS-K8 - compare chassis scale, IPS Edition identity and encryption suffix.
• ASA5545-IPS-K8 - compare chassis scale, IPS Edition identity and encryption suffix.

Official Cisco evidence: Cisco ASA 5500-X data sheet and ordering table, Cisco lifecycle notice, and Cisco Secure Firewall compatibility record.