Cisco Cisco ASA 5550 Adaptive Security Appliance Guide De Montage

The ASA 5550 has two internal buses providing copper Gigabit Ethernet and fiber Gigabit Ethernet 
connectivity. For Slot 1 (Bus 1), you can use either the copper ports or the fiber ports. The copper ports 
are enabled by default.

For maximum throughput, configure the ASA so that traffic is distributed equally between the two 
buses. Lay out the network so that traffic enters through one bus and exits through the other.

For example, the following figure shows the ASA configured so that traffic from the unsecure network 
and the secure network is evenly distributed between Bus 0 and Bus 1. Traffic from hosts on the 
secured network flows through interface 0/0 on Bus 0 to hosts on the unsecured network. Traffic from 
hosts on the unsecured network flows through interface 1/0 on Bus 1 to hosts on the secured network.

Slot 1 (Bus 1)

Slot 0 (Bus 0)

Copper Gigabit

Ethernet

Fiber Gigabit 

Ethernet

Copper Gigabit

Ethernet

300011

Slot 1

Slot 0

Incoming and

outgoing traffic

Incoming and

outgoing traffic

Secured

 Network

Unsecured

 Network

300010