ACS

[Leo_Stobbe]

Hello,

I have some questions related ACS

There are several products

1.The Cisco Secure Access Control Server (ACS) Solution Engine

2.Cisco Secure Access Control Server for Windows

3.Cisco Secure ACS Express 5.0

The only difference between the Solution Engine and ACS for Windows is that 1st one is appliance and 2nd one is just software.

Also Solution Engine has already reached end of sale.

The freshest solution from Cisco is Cisco Secure ACS Express 5.0. It is also appliance, which support 50 AAA clients and 350 unique user logons in a 24-hour.

It means 350 usernames in local(or external) database?

What is benefit using Secure ACS Express 5.0 instead of Cisco ACS for Windows? Certainly, If there is one.

thx

Leo

[andrew.burns]

Hi,

Regarding the ACS Solution Engine vs. the ACS Software, there is a detailed Q&A which should answer all your questions here:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/vpndevc/ps5712/ps5338/prod_qas09186a008018e94a.html

Note that the current Solution Engine platform (1113) is not end-of-sale.

The main benefit if the Express Appliance is simply price as it's half the price of the ACS Software and about one third of the price if the full appliance. If you only have a small number of users then it's more cost-effective.

Finally, the 350 limit is user logons (not users) as this quote shows:

"A maximum of 350 unique user ID logons to AAA (through TACACS+ or RADIUS). The limit applies daily and is reset at 12 midnight."

So, it doesn't matter if the user account is local or external as the appliance is only counting logons (presumably only successful ones!)

HTH

Andrew.