ASA5555-K8

ASA5555-K8 Exact Firewall Edition

ASA5555-K8 is a physical Cisco ASA 5555-X Firewall Edition in the DES-license edition. Cisco documents 8 copper Gigabit Ethernet data ports, one copper Gigabit Ethernet management port and one AC power supply for this edition.

Encryption suffix boundary

K8 identifies the DES-limited edition, not the 3DES/AES K9 edition. Because DES is obsolete for modern security policy, any continued deployment needs an explicit non-encrypted or migration use case rather than an assumption of acceptable VPN protection.

Platform scale is not current fitness

Cisco's data sheet lists up to 5000 IPsec VPN peers for the ASA 5555-X family, but this historical maximum does not override the K8 encryption restriction, current software support, measured performance or lifecycle status.

Lifecycle decision

Cisco's compatibility record shows September 30, 2025 as the end-of-support date for the ASA 5555-X family. The procurement record must identify the supported successor and a policy-conversion owner.

Large DES appliance retirement

ASA5555-K8 combines the high-scale ASA 5555-X chassis with a DES license. High interface or peer capacity does not make DES appropriate for current encrypted traffic.

Use traffic data to identify clear-text policy workloads, legacy tunnels and business-critical adjacencies. Replace or remove every DES-dependent connection, preserving packet-flow ownership and rollback points for each migration wave.

Legacy crypto removal evidence

Verify eight data GE ports, management GE, AC supply and K8 entitlement. Capture the running image and configuration, enumerate DES use, disable it in a controlled test copy, and document the supported target for every flow that fails.

DES dependency burn-down

Start with configuration search and traffic observation to identify every DES proposal, transform set, peer and exception. Assign each finding a target algorithm, replacement endpoint, application owner and closure date. Rehearse removal in a lab or isolated configuration and preserve the exact error or negotiation evidence produced by remaining legacy peers. Publish a weekly burn-down until no production flow depends on DES, then archive the old secrets under the organization's disposal procedure.

Related ASA Firewall Edition records

• ASA5555-K9 - compare chassis scale and the K7/K8/K9 encryption boundary.
• ASA5555-K7 - compare chassis scale and the K7/K8/K9 encryption boundary.
• ASA5545-K8 - compare chassis scale and the K7/K8/K9 encryption boundary.

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