Net giants enter VPN fray. [ASND plans]
By Tim Greene
Network World Fusion, 5/4/98
idg.net
Las Vegas - Virtual private network (VPN)
products will take center stage at
Networld+Interop 98 this week as major players
and start-ups alike will spotlight their latest wares
for securely accessing corporate networks over
the Internet.
Industry giants Bay Networks, Inc., Ascend
Communications, Inc. and IBM, as well as
newcomers Indus River Networks, Inc. and
Assured Digital, Inc. hope to steal the show with
new VPN offerings.
VPNs are an increasingly popular option for
linking employees or business partners over the
Internet. Ideally, a VPN provides security and
management attributes that promise a less
expensive way of linking remote users to corporate
net resources than traditional private dial-in lines.
According to industry ex-perts, what most vendors
call a VPN consists of encrypted TCP/IP links
between LANs with some sort of firewall included.
There are variations on that theme, many of which
will be on display at N+I.
Bay Networks will announce a scaled down
version of the vendor's VPN gear to let small
enterprises and branch offices communicate with
remote users or trading partners over the Internet.
The Bay ES 1000 can support up to 50
simultaneous users dialing in to the corporate
network via the Internet. The ES 1000 encrypts
and decrypts traffic as it passes through the
device's single T-1 link to the Internet. Larger
boxes in the Bay VPN family support T-3
connections as well as T-1s.
In addition, the ES 1000 sports new operating
software that adds L2TP, which is encryption for setting up secure IP
connections called tunnels across the Internet.
ES 1000 also comes with software that can encapsulate Novell Network,
Inc.'s IPX traffic in IP packets for transport across the Internet. The
software also supports using Novell's Netware Directory Services to
assign access rights to remote users, making it simpler to administer the
VPN. The new box costs $7,000.
While Bay offers a single-box designed specifically to enable VPNs, Ascend plans to roll out a VPN scheme that lashes together multiple existing products.
The company's MultiVPN package defines how corporate users and ISPs can set up VPNs using Ascend dialup routers, access switches and core switches. Ascend's MultiVPN package will support remote access over the Internet and provide a way to guarantee IP service quality across service provider networks.
As part of MultiVPN, Ascend will also announce IP Navigator VPN Routing, which lets service providers guarantee customer IP service levels. The company will also announce support for multiprotocol label switching, which will let users belong to multiple VPNs.
Also at Interop
Sources said IBM's Networking Software Division will be announcing a slew of VPN and related IP security products across the company's server and router lines. One of the keys to this will be the addition of IP Security (IPSec) for encryption and key management. IBM declined to comment on the announcement.
Assured Digital will present for the first time its ADI VPN product family,
which includes client software, management software and IP edge
switches for sending encrypted data across the Internet. ADI gear also
authenticates users trying to gain access to central sites. ADI's Automated
Operation and Security (AOS) system in each device supports IPSec,
ISAKMP/Oakley encryption-key management, and Point-to-Point
Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) encryption.
Indus River is promising to deliver IPSec packet-level au-thentication and
encryption to users in its RiverWorks VPN gear within 90 days. Unique
to RiverWorks is a client database of local phone rates used to find the
least expensive way to connect to the Internet. RiverWorks also stores
profiles of user groups for assigning access rights.
Staff writer Marc Songini contributed to this story.
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