Cisco AnyConnect Essentials
June 2nd, 2009
1
I recently discovered this new Cisco AnyConnect Essentials license being touted for the 8.2 code for ASAs. It took me a little while to parse through the cryptic description on Cisco’s site but it seems that you can now get client based SSL for a couple hundres $$’s depending on the ASA model. That’s up to the platform supported max!
If you want the web portal “clientless” SSL VPN you have to pay the previous crazy pricing for the “Premium” license. For most people this won’t matter and what it means is essentially a cheap SSL client solution now. Woohoo!
This guy seemed to confirm my thoughts.
Dude stole my theme too! 
FYI-
I have not posted this on my blog yet, but I have now upgraded to the 8.2 code and I am awaiting delivery of the Cisco license key to enable the AnyConnect Essentials. I will throw up a post once I have done this!
P.S. I did totally steal your theme… It seems to be a popular one amongst network guys.
-Eric
Where I work we also just received our license and I have the ASA’s arriving any day now. I should be installing the license within the next two weeks and I’ll report back what I find.
I gotta say, it’s about time Cisco did this.
My company has a number of VPN endpoints all using the traditional Cisco IPSEC client – works great but there is no 64bit path forward unless you want to pay for an aftermarket client or go open source. One of the open source ones blue screened my Win 7 notebook on the first try so I’ll not be going there.
I just installed an ASA 5510 with the AnyConnect Essentials and upgraded my 5505 to the Essentials for less than $100. Working great so far with Win 7 32 & 64 bit testing and also Macintosh. Still works great with the traditional client as well. I’ll be testing on an Ubuntu notebook before the end of the week.
One thing I like is that I can upgrade my clients by putting the new version into the firmware of the ASA instead of visiting machines or hoping users can do it themselves. Also helps out with initial installations.
Hey all,
I’m a little confused by this whole anyconnect-essentials license thing. The cost seems so low, I’m having a hard time figuring out exactly what it is that it allows on my device. Basically, we are attempting to replace the IPSec VPN with the SSL VPN on Windows 7 64-Bit clients. Is that what the anyconnect-essentials license does? I am just looking for confirmation, I do not want, nor do I need, the clientless VPN or anything like that.
Thanks,
Mark
Mark, that’s exactly right. The basic AnyConnect client falls under this license. I was stunned too but Cisco’s been moving towards phasing out a client based IPSEC VPN solution. It’s still a long way from happening but I think they recognized that charging a lot for the AnyConnect client wasn’t going to fly.
Hey quick question for those that got the essentials working for them. Is there separate software that is needed to use the essentials license? We bought the license and applied it but we’re still getting the message saying that we’re over our two SSL licenses. I’ve tried searching for AC Essentials specific software but came up empty.
also if anyone has a link to a configuration example (CLI or ASDM doesn’t matter) that would be great. I haven’t found much online yet.
TIA
actually I think it may be the activation key. We got two keys after buying the license. One was for all versions and one was for 8.2. I applied the one for all versions because we were running 8.0 at the time. We have since upgraded to 8.2 but didn’t use the 8.2 only key. I think that is needed for the AC Essentials. We’ll see tomorrow after I reboot the ASA tonight.
It was the activation key. After switching to the one that was for 8.2 only we can now connect more than two clients using the regular anyconnect software.