Cisco AnyConnect Essentials still crushing it

Seems my original post about the AnyConnect Essentials license is still quite popular. So why not capitalize on that! 🙂

The license does work as advertised. It’s a replacement for the IPSEC based client that Cisco seems to have stopped development on. I’ve been using it in numerous situations and it works great!

I just have a funny situation though where my client was exploring alternatives to Cisco. We got pricing for a couple of competitors including Sonicwall and Juniper and let me tell you…whoo-boy! I guess the others haven’t felt compelled to follow Cisco’s lead and they are still charging ridiculous sums for the SSL VPN clients. Of course there were howls of protest about how their clients did so much more and that if you wanted the same level of functionality you had to pay for Cisco’s full SSL VPN solution. All true, but who cares????

I want a simple client based SSL VPN to replace the IPSEC clients of old. I don’t need all the fancy clientless stuff. I suspect that’s true for a lot of customers. Cisco’s pricing strategy for the AnyConnect Essentials is smart not just because they don’t want to continue to develop the IPSEC client but because it drives business away from their competitors.

Cisco, your choice in focus these days mostly pisses me off but this is a real winner. A small bright spot in an otherwise dreary path you’ve taken. Now, if you could find a way to ship ASA’s before the summer I’d be happy.

4 thoughts on “Cisco AnyConnect Essentials still crushing it

  1. The “magic” doesn’t work as expected, oh well the cheapo essentials does what it promises, but did you tried to buy it as today?
    CISCO is not releasing those license to their partners, and it’s almost impossible to buy one (all around the world).
    They claim they are “out of stock” (we’re talking about a electronic license: a number to *unlock* a restriction; not a product that you need to build up).
    Out company has a couple of ASAs sitting here, what we would like to use as SSL VPN servers (paying £10k is out of questions), but we can’t. We’re wasting money and time actually.
    As today so, those “Anyconnect Essentials” licenses, exists only on the paper.
    You got it luck to have bought one last year.. probably Cisco realized that they weren’t selling those crazy-priced licenses anymore and they put a *honest* product magically “out of stock”.
    That “small bright spot” was really too small.. and it imploded. 😉

    1. I just got a pair of the licenses about a month ago. What I’m having a problem with now is getting hardware. Something about China locking up the pipeline to Cisco and they can’t get anything out. We’ve been waiting on another pair of ASA’s and we’re being told NO ASA’s of any kind will be available until the summer.

  2. You lucky. I’m fighting with CISCO to have a “number” by 3 weeks now, they sold to me the car but won’t give out the keys. 🙂
    The nice part is that they deliveried fastly (very fast) the Security Plus license.. guess why? Since the Anyconnect costs around £70, while Security Plus costs ten times that price. Aren’t they smart? 😉
    I think we’re forced to move to a more reliable company, we’re without the VPN by 3 weeks, and this is costing to us the price of an ASA per week (all for £70, and because CISCO didn’t realized that we’re in the Year 2010, making a bunch of numbers (electronic license) wouldn’t take than …hum? 0.1 seconds?).
    Cheers!

  3. The part that is not so smart about the Anyconnect Essentials License is that it’s NOT compatible with the full SSL VPN Licenses. Basically this means that if you have the cheap Anyconnect Essentials installed, you don’t have the clientless SSL VPN portal. If there are only a couple of users who would need or like to have it, then you have to pay the huge premium for a full SSL VPN license for ALL users, including those who would only need basic VPN access, see
    https://supportforums.cisco.com/docs/DOC-1361;jsessionid=270233541AB06FA33E6670275275C2EB.node0#Q_On_the_ASA_can_AnyConnect_Essentials_and_Premium_clientslicense_operate_simultaneously
    or
    http://www.cisco.com/en/US/partner/docs/security/asa/asa82/license/license82.html#wp194416
    Cheers, Jan

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