Cisco SA 520 review

The Cisco SA 520 lives up to its Small Business billing, but doesn't meet the requirements for the Pro designation, lacking adequate tools for managing a remote office endpoint for larger infrastructures. Given the specs for the device, that's a shame, because it definitely performs like a higher end unit, offering advanced features including 802.1p, CDP (Cisco Discovery Protocol) RADIUS and syslog support.

If all you're looking for is a small business firewall, you can get one cheaper than the SA 520, albeit without some of the extended features. If you're looking to terminate a VPN at a remote office, you might find that paying more for another device that has the necessary management capabilities makes sense in the end.

If you're in the middle, needing a small business firewall with content filtering and dual-WAN capabilities, the SA 520 might be just the ticket but I'm not sure how many of those businesses exist these days.