ASA5545-IPS-K8

ASA5545-IPS-K8 Exact IPS Edition

ASA5545-IPS-K8 is a physical Cisco ASA 5545-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 8 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 2500 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's compatibility record shows September 30, 2025 as the end-of-support date for ASA 5545-X. Existing deployments should be measured and migrated rather than expanded.

DES inspection retirement

ASA5545-IPS-K8 is the DES-limited IPS Edition. Its eight data interfaces can concentrate many policy dependencies, but the chassis scale must not be confused with current encryption fitness.

Locate every DES proposal, VPN peer and inspection dependency. Assign each one a supported destination, application owner and closure date before the old policy is moved.

Crypto and IPS burn-down

Track DES findings and IPS policy findings in the same migration ledger so a flow cannot lose inspection while its tunnel is replaced. For each peer, record protected prefixes, authentication method, IPS action, expected event and rollback route. Rehearse policy removal in an isolated configuration and archive the negotiation or signature evidence produced by unresolved legacy systems.

Inspection placement review

Do not assume that every inspection rule belongs on the replacement perimeter. Identify traffic that moved to cloud, application gateways, endpoint controls or encrypted paths where the old sensor no longer has useful visibility. For each signature family, choose retain at perimeter, relocate, replace with another control or retire, and cite observed traffic plus the service owner's decision. This review prevents an eight-port legacy topology from defining the new security architecture. Preserve examples of true positives and noisy events so tuning decisions remain auditable after the K8 device and its DES dependencies are removed.

Related ASA IPS Edition records

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