Advanced operating system enables easy deployment, management & monitoring with increased levels of optimization
Expand Networks www.expand.com, the leader in optimizing WANs for branch office consolidation and virtualization, today announced a major upgrade to its operating system – OS 6.3 – that will significantly improve the functionality, value and installation of its Accelerators. This latest OS runs across Expand’s range of physical & virtual Accelerator solutions, and introduces advanced features to help customers achieve increased performance, ease of use, value for money, greater WAN provisioning capabilities and improved management and monitoring efficiencies.
The enhanced Layer 7 QoS features of OS 6.3 provide the highest levels of integrated visibility and control in a single OS of any vendor in the market, enabling organizations of all sizes to maximize their WAN infrastructure. OS 6.3 also introduces significant advancements in ease of deployment; for example, high latency environments requiring TCP acceleration benefit from enhanced dynamic SCPS support, and a new RDP proxy feature enables “zero touch” installation into Microsoft RDP environments.
WAN Performance Made Easy
As IT infrastructures become more virtualized and distributed, so the need for effective deployment management increases. OS 6.3 has a number of new and enhanced features that enable organizations to deploy in a more dynamic & intuitive way, ensuring ease of configuration, use and ongoing management of Expand WAN optimization solutions. These include:
· Central configuration – Enhanced central configuration enables single sided configuration, making global deployments across multiple timezones as simple as possible
· SCPS TCP Acceleration auto configuration – Single Sided “dynamic auto configuration” means no need to configure remote accelerators for acceleration functionality
· TCP auto bandwidth optimization/Virtual Bandwidth – Extended ability to Optimize and control Physical and additional virtual bandwidth in dynamic environments where capacity availability is constantly changing.
· Microsoft RDP proxy – Accelerators are uniquely auto configured for “zero touch” installation into RDP environments, to deliver simple and immediate optimization & acceleration benefits for Microsoft RDP protocols with no need to change RDP Server or client settings.
Improved Optimization, Acceleration, Visibility and Control
This latest OS dramatically enhances application visibility and control via enhanced layer 7 QoS, enabling organizations of all sizes to maximize their WAN infrastructure. The new and enhanced features include:
· Enhanced VMware Vsphere4 integration - Fault tolerance and High Availability (HA) in virtualized environments enabling IT to take advantage of VMware’s suite of management tools such as VMotion, Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) and High Availability, to dynamically deploy, manage, maintain and assure the performance of Expand’s Virtual Accelerator.
· Enhanced web caching for non Hard Drive appliances – The ability to now use hard Drive caching techniques in Extreme environments on our non hard drive platforms via the use of a 4GB Solid Stat memory card that simply slots into the available expansion slot.
· Enhanced TCP Acceleration with Hybla - Congestion avoidance algorithm counteracting the performance deterioration of TCP connections within high-latency terrestrial or satellite radio links.
Combining these new features with its existing RDP and Citrix Layer 7 Visibility and Control capabilities, Expand now boasts the industry’s most comprehensive Layer 7 QoS engine enabling IT to easily identify, manage and control all applications traversing the enterprise & Cloud WAN, while deployment has become even more simplified with the new dynamic installation management features.
“While tactical optimization technologies can deliver extra network capacity, if it is not being controlled appropriately it can have a detrimental effect on the company’s most important applications and, as a result, its business performance,” comments Efi Gatmor, CTO of Expand Networks. “IT has realized that maximizing the WAN is no longer just about just providing acceleration, but about enabling enhanced levels of traffic visibility and control. These latest OS advancements further enhance Layer 7 visibility and ease of use, to provide greater control and optimization of the WAN thus enabling organizations to assure the quality of user experience across complex environments.”
“Committed to a following a wholly holistic approach to WAN Optimization, Expand enables organizations to choose and use the right tool for the right application – and optimize it – regardless of network environment, or protocol. With our integrated technology, we continue to deliver this experience across physical, virtual and mobile appliances, and will continue to innovate in meeting the evolving needs of organizations,” concludes Barr.
Expand Networks OS 6.3 is available to customers on request from today, with general availability in May.
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Tuesday, 13 April 2010
Monday, 12 April 2010
MobileIron's iPad App Monitors Corporate SmartPhones - Converge ...
MobileIron, a start-up based in Mountain View, California, introduced its MobileIron Sentry App for the Apple iPad. The app provides a mobile command center from which IT departments can monitor and take action on smartphones accessing enterprise email. The MobileIron Sentry App for iPad delivers real-time monitoring and response capabilities including:
* Dashboard view of smartphone connection activity.
* Identification of unauthorized or risky access.
* Blocking of rogue devices.
* Policy setting based on the device type employees are choosing.
MobileIron offers a Virtual Smartphone Platform that helps companies take control of smartphones, including for BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, iPhone, Symbian, and Android.
MobileIron is headed by Bob Tinker (president and CEO), who previously led the Business Development team for Cisco's wireless business units. The company was co-founded by Suresh Batchu, previously Engineering Portfolio Leader for application switching and security at Nortel Enterprise Data Network, and Ajay Mishra, who previously was a co-founder of enterprise wireless pioneer Airespace (now part of Cisco).
Original Article - Broadband Wireless News - http://www.convergedigest.com/Wireless/broadbandwirelessarticle.asp?ID=30084
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* Dashboard view of smartphone connection activity.
* Identification of unauthorized or risky access.
* Blocking of rogue devices.
* Policy setting based on the device type employees are choosing.
MobileIron offers a Virtual Smartphone Platform that helps companies take control of smartphones, including for BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, iPhone, Symbian, and Android.
MobileIron is headed by Bob Tinker (president and CEO), who previously led the Business Development team for Cisco's wireless business units. The company was co-founded by Suresh Batchu, previously Engineering Portfolio Leader for application switching and security at Nortel Enterprise Data Network, and Ajay Mishra, who previously was a co-founder of enterprise wireless pioneer Airespace (now part of Cisco).
Original Article - Broadband Wireless News - http://www.convergedigest.com/Wireless/broadbandwirelessarticle.asp?ID=30084
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Friday, 9 April 2010
Businesses Need Mobile Device Management
Mobile operators are struggling to to cope with oversubscribed spectrums, forcing enterprises to resort to mobile management services, says Andrew Garcia
As smartphone adoption continues to increase, mobile operators are struggling—and will continue to struggle—to provide adequate levels of service, as spectrum is oversubscribed or cell-site backhaul gets saturated. So enterprises need to arm themselves with the right information to determine when their client base is adversely affected and their employee productivity is limited by this congestion.
Those of us who work in downtown San Francisco know all too well that AT&T’s service on a weekday is commonly horrendous for both data and voice. We’ve heard this complaint from iPhone customers (including myself, until recently) for well over a year now, and AT&T has acknowledged that it has a lot of work still to do in markets like San Francisco and New York where smartphone data usage (and iPhone adoption) is uncommonly high.
The fact remains that AT&T’s problems in these areas aren’t confined solely to the iPhone. During last month’s RSA security conference in San Francisco, I had lunch with a friend who complained about the mobile phone service around the Moscone Center. She kept getting messages saying “Emergency Calls Only” on her phone. Her corporate-issue Windows Mobile phone, complete with enterprise service plan and contracts, couldn’t get service in the middle of downtown San Francisco.
Mobile device management enters the mainstream
In 2008, I wrote a story enumerating some of the different types of management IT administrators should have over their mobile device and application ecosystem, citing an up-and-coming area that I referred to as service management. I referred to service management as “paying the least buck for the bang,” tracking smartphone usage to cull out and excise neglected devices or those needing different types of plans (like international plans) to better match actual usage. But over time, service management has begun to morph as well, adding intelligence and reporting to be able to track things like dropped calls or signal levels.
When I wrote that story, service management was a pretty niche offering. Operators provided some reports, and third-party solutions could correlate enterprise device and directory data with usage reports from carriers to identify inefficient usage. But now I’m seeing a number of advanced mobile device management platforms adding service management features, starting with cost and usage analysis.
One of the most interesting tidbits I came across during my somewhat unsuccessful attempt to review Boxtone’s device management suite was a series of service management reports that came with its Asset, Expense and Compliance Management module, which attempted to actively define ROI and costs for smartphone usage (or lack thereof). Inventory reports enumerated last message sent and received, providing insight into when a device was last used.
Low-use and no-use reports organise this data, identifying last contact date and the cost of this inaction based on monthly per-device costs. And Productivity reports identify each user’s volume of messages read and sent during nonbusiness hours, allowing managers to assess and put a dollar value on nonbusiness-hour work done via the mobile platform.
Other MDM vendors are growing their service management to encompass wireless performance in the field, which could help an enterprise build a case with their existing operator about poor network performance. That could lead to cost savings—and might even help build a case to change carriers. For instance, MDM maker Mobile Iron’s Mobile Activity Intelligence tracks wireless network performance, logging and mapping dropped calls, signal strength and discovered network coverage gaps over time across the mobile fleet.
Tracking this kind of data requires additional client-side intelligence. BlackBerry devices already have an ongoing dialogue with an associated BlackBerry Enterprise Server that could help form the basis for these reports (Mobile Iron needs to be paired with a BES), but ActiveSync-connected smartphones typically do not. So a device-side client application to collect and report is needed, and Mobile Iron claims to support Windows Mobile, iPhone, Symbian and WebOS. This indicates that enterprises could extend their service management to any employee-owned devices allowed to connect to corporate resources.
Original Article - eWeek Europe - http://www.eweekeurope.co.uk/comment/businesses-turn-to-mobile-data-management-services-6235
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As smartphone adoption continues to increase, mobile operators are struggling—and will continue to struggle—to provide adequate levels of service, as spectrum is oversubscribed or cell-site backhaul gets saturated. So enterprises need to arm themselves with the right information to determine when their client base is adversely affected and their employee productivity is limited by this congestion.
Those of us who work in downtown San Francisco know all too well that AT&T’s service on a weekday is commonly horrendous for both data and voice. We’ve heard this complaint from iPhone customers (including myself, until recently) for well over a year now, and AT&T has acknowledged that it has a lot of work still to do in markets like San Francisco and New York where smartphone data usage (and iPhone adoption) is uncommonly high.
The fact remains that AT&T’s problems in these areas aren’t confined solely to the iPhone. During last month’s RSA security conference in San Francisco, I had lunch with a friend who complained about the mobile phone service around the Moscone Center. She kept getting messages saying “Emergency Calls Only” on her phone. Her corporate-issue Windows Mobile phone, complete with enterprise service plan and contracts, couldn’t get service in the middle of downtown San Francisco.
Mobile device management enters the mainstream
In 2008, I wrote a story enumerating some of the different types of management IT administrators should have over their mobile device and application ecosystem, citing an up-and-coming area that I referred to as service management. I referred to service management as “paying the least buck for the bang,” tracking smartphone usage to cull out and excise neglected devices or those needing different types of plans (like international plans) to better match actual usage. But over time, service management has begun to morph as well, adding intelligence and reporting to be able to track things like dropped calls or signal levels.
When I wrote that story, service management was a pretty niche offering. Operators provided some reports, and third-party solutions could correlate enterprise device and directory data with usage reports from carriers to identify inefficient usage. But now I’m seeing a number of advanced mobile device management platforms adding service management features, starting with cost and usage analysis.
One of the most interesting tidbits I came across during my somewhat unsuccessful attempt to review Boxtone’s device management suite was a series of service management reports that came with its Asset, Expense and Compliance Management module, which attempted to actively define ROI and costs for smartphone usage (or lack thereof). Inventory reports enumerated last message sent and received, providing insight into when a device was last used.
Low-use and no-use reports organise this data, identifying last contact date and the cost of this inaction based on monthly per-device costs. And Productivity reports identify each user’s volume of messages read and sent during nonbusiness hours, allowing managers to assess and put a dollar value on nonbusiness-hour work done via the mobile platform.
Other MDM vendors are growing their service management to encompass wireless performance in the field, which could help an enterprise build a case with their existing operator about poor network performance. That could lead to cost savings—and might even help build a case to change carriers. For instance, MDM maker Mobile Iron’s Mobile Activity Intelligence tracks wireless network performance, logging and mapping dropped calls, signal strength and discovered network coverage gaps over time across the mobile fleet.
Tracking this kind of data requires additional client-side intelligence. BlackBerry devices already have an ongoing dialogue with an associated BlackBerry Enterprise Server that could help form the basis for these reports (Mobile Iron needs to be paired with a BES), but ActiveSync-connected smartphones typically do not. So a device-side client application to collect and report is needed, and Mobile Iron claims to support Windows Mobile, iPhone, Symbian and WebOS. This indicates that enterprises could extend their service management to any employee-owned devices allowed to connect to corporate resources.
Original Article - eWeek Europe - http://www.eweekeurope.co.uk/comment/businesses-turn-to-mobile-data-management-services-6235
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Thursday, 8 April 2010
Bolivian National Bank Achieves Savings of $250,000 with Expand Networks WAN Optimization
Expand Networks www.expand.com, the leader in optimizing WANs for branch office consolidation and virtualization, today announced that Banco Nacional de Bolivia (BNB) has successfully improved business performance and achieved significant cost savings with Expand Networks Advanced WAN Optimization technology.
Implementing Expand Accelerators across its distributed environment, BNB has brought its employees into virtual proximity of their centralized applications and services, successfully enhancing user experience, increasing business productivity and extending returns on network investments.
Operating across 8 locations across the country, BNB has over 37 local offices. With application and data held centrally, BNB’s 1,300 branch office employees rely heavily upon the WAN for the delivery of its critical business applications. Following BNB’s own business growth and an increase in the economic activities of the country, its existing bandwidth provision struggled to cope with the rising numbers of complex applications travelling over the WAN.
Roberto Delgadillo Poepsel, national systems manager at BNB explains, “Increasing volumes of data being passed between our branches via such tight bandwidth links seriously impacted productivity levels. Our employees experienced slow performance of centralized applications, such as Intranet and e-mail. We also found that the quality of VoIP delivery very poor.”
BNB set up a centralized team to manage WAN traffic in accordance with Quality of Service (QoS) rules but having done so, quickly realized that QoS alone was not sufficient to solve the problem. Delgadillo continues, “We soon knew that this could only be a temporary solution, and we needed a more comprehensive optimization approach that would put a stop to the huge expenditure being wasted on increasing bandwidth and enhance user experience.”
BNB looked to adopt a WAN optimization strategy that could offer visibility and control as well as high network performance levels. As a financial institution, network security was also a key concern for BNB, and one which Expand Networks’ technology was able to satisfy, as Delgadillo explains, “Expand offered the best performance infrastructure for our network, taking away the need for continuingly increasing bandwidth investment, whilst its unique ability to guarantee security with the IP-Sec protocol was a key factor. Other technologies we looked at couldn’t provide the level of speed and performance that we experienced from Expand.”
Following an evaluation process, BNB chose to pilot Expand Networks technology, and found the results spoke for themselves. “In addition to security, other solutions simply did not offer the necessary compression we required for this project. Expand also offered the fastest RoI. This, compiled with the performance, security and flexibility of the solution, made it a simple choice.”
Following the success of the pilot, BNB chose to implement the Expand Accelerators between its central office, branch sites and local offices. The Expand solution has delivered a rapid RoI, with BNB saving over $86,000 in 9 months. Delgadillo continues, “Our new Expand Accelerators are giving users the impression they have a greater bandwidth, without having to pay for it. The performance speed of network operations is up 80%, meaning the business is running so much more efficiently and productivity levels are at an all time high. We have saved a huge $86,000 in less than one year. We estimate that these savings will continue to increase as time goes on and expect that a further $287,000 will be saved to be put to better use.”
Adam Davison, corporate VP sales & marketing at Expand Networks, says, “As users and their applications move further apart, business performance can suffer. Our unique integrated technology delivers a virtual proximity experience designed to close this gap through the delivery of virtual bandwidth. BNB is a great example of how our next generation compression and acceleration techniques can take limited WAN Links and fully maximize throughputs - on the exact same infrastructure.”
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Implementing Expand Accelerators across its distributed environment, BNB has brought its employees into virtual proximity of their centralized applications and services, successfully enhancing user experience, increasing business productivity and extending returns on network investments.
Operating across 8 locations across the country, BNB has over 37 local offices. With application and data held centrally, BNB’s 1,300 branch office employees rely heavily upon the WAN for the delivery of its critical business applications. Following BNB’s own business growth and an increase in the economic activities of the country, its existing bandwidth provision struggled to cope with the rising numbers of complex applications travelling over the WAN.
Roberto Delgadillo Poepsel, national systems manager at BNB explains, “Increasing volumes of data being passed between our branches via such tight bandwidth links seriously impacted productivity levels. Our employees experienced slow performance of centralized applications, such as Intranet and e-mail. We also found that the quality of VoIP delivery very poor.”
BNB set up a centralized team to manage WAN traffic in accordance with Quality of Service (QoS) rules but having done so, quickly realized that QoS alone was not sufficient to solve the problem. Delgadillo continues, “We soon knew that this could only be a temporary solution, and we needed a more comprehensive optimization approach that would put a stop to the huge expenditure being wasted on increasing bandwidth and enhance user experience.”
BNB looked to adopt a WAN optimization strategy that could offer visibility and control as well as high network performance levels. As a financial institution, network security was also a key concern for BNB, and one which Expand Networks’ technology was able to satisfy, as Delgadillo explains, “Expand offered the best performance infrastructure for our network, taking away the need for continuingly increasing bandwidth investment, whilst its unique ability to guarantee security with the IP-Sec protocol was a key factor. Other technologies we looked at couldn’t provide the level of speed and performance that we experienced from Expand.”
Following an evaluation process, BNB chose to pilot Expand Networks technology, and found the results spoke for themselves. “In addition to security, other solutions simply did not offer the necessary compression we required for this project. Expand also offered the fastest RoI. This, compiled with the performance, security and flexibility of the solution, made it a simple choice.”
Following the success of the pilot, BNB chose to implement the Expand Accelerators between its central office, branch sites and local offices. The Expand solution has delivered a rapid RoI, with BNB saving over $86,000 in 9 months. Delgadillo continues, “Our new Expand Accelerators are giving users the impression they have a greater bandwidth, without having to pay for it. The performance speed of network operations is up 80%, meaning the business is running so much more efficiently and productivity levels are at an all time high. We have saved a huge $86,000 in less than one year. We estimate that these savings will continue to increase as time goes on and expect that a further $287,000 will be saved to be put to better use.”
Adam Davison, corporate VP sales & marketing at Expand Networks, says, “As users and their applications move further apart, business performance can suffer. Our unique integrated technology delivers a virtual proximity experience designed to close this gap through the delivery of virtual bandwidth. BNB is a great example of how our next generation compression and acceleration techniques can take limited WAN Links and fully maximize throughputs - on the exact same infrastructure.”
Join Us: http://bit.ly/joincloud
Thursday, 25 March 2010
OpSource SLA Ensures Dependability in the Cloud
Taking a cue from legacy network providers, cloud infrastructure provider OpSource has launched an uptime guarantee to help reduce customer fears of reliability when working in the cloud.
The OpSource Cloud SLA offers users 100 percent network uptime, 100 percent server uptime, less than 1-millisecond latency between devices, and 30-minute support response time for emergency cases, all guaranteed. If in the event a customer experiences any downtime or latency issues, or has to wait longer than 30 minutes for support, the customer would receive a credit.
As more enterprises move their networks to the cloud, SLAs are becoming more important. OpSource’s SLA is not the first, but it points to a growing demand for reliability in the emerging space.
In fact, in a recent survey conducted of OpSource Cloud customers, 74 percent said that a 100 percent uptime SLA was extremely important in their purchase decision-making.
OpSource service providers can point to the OpSource Cloud SLA as a commitment that the applications they’re providing are guaranteed to be available when and where the end user needs access — and are as reliable as legacy dedicated services.
“OpSource Cloud has enjoyed great momentum, growing 44 percent per month since we introduced the public beta back in October,” said Treb Ryan, CEO of OpSource. “We’re proud to offer a product that is enterprise-class not only in features and functionality, but also in its service level agreement. Cloud users have to be confident in their cloud and our new SLA is intended to build that confidence.”
OpSource offers public and virtual private clouds. Users can pay by the hour or for what they use, depending on their preference, and the have access to community resources for sharing and collaboration, third-party add-ins and configurations, as well as a Web interface and complete set of APIs.
Enteprise security and compliance within the OpSource cloud includes customizable security for firewalls, user-level login/password and access controls, and SAS 70 audits.
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The OpSource Cloud SLA offers users 100 percent network uptime, 100 percent server uptime, less than 1-millisecond latency between devices, and 30-minute support response time for emergency cases, all guaranteed. If in the event a customer experiences any downtime or latency issues, or has to wait longer than 30 minutes for support, the customer would receive a credit.
As more enterprises move their networks to the cloud, SLAs are becoming more important. OpSource’s SLA is not the first, but it points to a growing demand for reliability in the emerging space.
In fact, in a recent survey conducted of OpSource Cloud customers, 74 percent said that a 100 percent uptime SLA was extremely important in their purchase decision-making.
OpSource service providers can point to the OpSource Cloud SLA as a commitment that the applications they’re providing are guaranteed to be available when and where the end user needs access — and are as reliable as legacy dedicated services.
“OpSource Cloud has enjoyed great momentum, growing 44 percent per month since we introduced the public beta back in October,” said Treb Ryan, CEO of OpSource. “We’re proud to offer a product that is enterprise-class not only in features and functionality, but also in its service level agreement. Cloud users have to be confident in their cloud and our new SLA is intended to build that confidence.”
OpSource offers public and virtual private clouds. Users can pay by the hour or for what they use, depending on their preference, and the have access to community resources for sharing and collaboration, third-party add-ins and configurations, as well as a Web interface and complete set of APIs.
Enteprise security and compliance within the OpSource cloud includes customizable security for firewalls, user-level login/password and access controls, and SAS 70 audits.
Join Us: http://bit.ly/joincloud
Wednesday, 24 March 2010
Twitter / Sequoia Capital: MobileIron topped CIO Upda ...
Three new options emerge for managing Smartphones in the Enterprise
The surge of iPhones and other smartphones in the enterprise is a major headache for IT departments. Now, there are three new medicines that may help to ease that pain.
All three are hosted solutions for managing and securing smartphones, essentially mobile computers accessing corporate networks and data.
The solutions include a joint effort from Enterprise Mobile and MobileIron; a new mobile e-mail protection service from Mobile Active Defense; and a new add-on for Keynote Systems' automated smartphone application testing service. More
Original Article - http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/converg/2010/031210-managing-smartphones.html
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The surge of iPhones and other smartphones in the enterprise is a major headache for IT departments. Now, there are three new medicines that may help to ease that pain.
All three are hosted solutions for managing and securing smartphones, essentially mobile computers accessing corporate networks and data.
The solutions include a joint effort from Enterprise Mobile and MobileIron; a new mobile e-mail protection service from Mobile Active Defense; and a new add-on for Keynote Systems' automated smartphone application testing service. More
Original Article - http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/converg/2010/031210-managing-smartphones.html
Join Us: http://bit.ly/joincloud
Tuesday, 23 March 2010
NeoAccel Steers SSL VPNs into the Fast Lane - www ...
San Jose, CA-based NeoAccel today announced the newest version of its SSL VPN-Plus product meant to bring SSL VPNs into the same neighborhood as IPSec VPNs performance-wise.
Virtual private networks (VPNs) provide a vital service for many businesses by establishing a secure tunnel to networks from remote locations. IPSec-based VPNs are known for their reliability and speed but require IT intervention in the form of client software deployment and setup. As "first generation" VPN technology, IPSec-based products are shackled with "clients that were not developed for friendliness," says Frank Guerrero, NeoAccel's vice president of marketing.
SSL VPNs, on the other hand, are renowned for their ubiquity and low administrative overhead, but the chatty nature of the standard can slow transactions to a crawl. According to the company, this "second generation" represents both a step forward in terms of access and scalability but a step back in responsiveness as broadband connections proliferate.
NeoAccel bridges these two worlds with its SSL VPN-Plus gateway appliances.
Now up to version 3.0, the 1U SSL VPN-Plus comes in three models, the SGX-4800, SGX-2400, and SGX-1200. At the top of the product line, the SGX-4800 provides data exchange rates of up to 950 Mbps and support for up to 10,000 concurrent users. Down the ladder, the SGX-2400 and SGX-12000 support speeds of up to 500 Mbps and 250 Mbps, and concurrent user counts of 2,000 and 100, respectively.
All models are capable of 1,800 logins and 8,400 SSL transactions per second.
While the specs tell one story, the most obvious performance indicator is the noticeable decrease in transfer times, even by human standards. In tests, NeoAccel's appliances were able to transfer an 8.5 MB file in 23 seconds over a LAN, a 5-second penalty over native speeds but nearly 4 minutes faster than a traditional SSL VPN.
This is made possible by the company's Intelligent Connection Acceleration Architecture, a technology that allows the hardware to prevent "TCP over TCP meltdown," a condition exacerbated when "two connections are running out of sync," according to Guerrero. In typical SSL VPNs, the secure tunnel has to accommodate these two nested TCP connections, which in turn imposes a drag on transfer speeds as the end-user system is constantly engaged in maintaining the SSL connection.
Therefore, NeoAccel is making the case for replacing IPsec VPNs with the company's technology. Aside from a low IT maintenance profile - since there are no end-user clients to lord over - the product also makes it possible to extend NAC-like access policies to remote systems as well as fine grained network segmenting controls to keep users outside of the corporate firewall from reaching resources they shouldn't.
Moreover, the SSL-based products open a lifeline to all types of workers, including those with handhelds as well as laptop toters. Another side effect is that users of "all levels of sophistication can log into networks," extending secure communications to every type of employee, not just the tech savvy ones, says Guerrero.
Join Us: http://bit.ly/joincloud
Virtual private networks (VPNs) provide a vital service for many businesses by establishing a secure tunnel to networks from remote locations. IPSec-based VPNs are known for their reliability and speed but require IT intervention in the form of client software deployment and setup. As "first generation" VPN technology, IPSec-based products are shackled with "clients that were not developed for friendliness," says Frank Guerrero, NeoAccel's vice president of marketing.
SSL VPNs, on the other hand, are renowned for their ubiquity and low administrative overhead, but the chatty nature of the standard can slow transactions to a crawl. According to the company, this "second generation" represents both a step forward in terms of access and scalability but a step back in responsiveness as broadband connections proliferate.
NeoAccel bridges these two worlds with its SSL VPN-Plus gateway appliances.
Now up to version 3.0, the 1U SSL VPN-Plus comes in three models, the SGX-4800, SGX-2400, and SGX-1200. At the top of the product line, the SGX-4800 provides data exchange rates of up to 950 Mbps and support for up to 10,000 concurrent users. Down the ladder, the SGX-2400 and SGX-12000 support speeds of up to 500 Mbps and 250 Mbps, and concurrent user counts of 2,000 and 100, respectively.
All models are capable of 1,800 logins and 8,400 SSL transactions per second.
While the specs tell one story, the most obvious performance indicator is the noticeable decrease in transfer times, even by human standards. In tests, NeoAccel's appliances were able to transfer an 8.5 MB file in 23 seconds over a LAN, a 5-second penalty over native speeds but nearly 4 minutes faster than a traditional SSL VPN.
This is made possible by the company's Intelligent Connection Acceleration Architecture, a technology that allows the hardware to prevent "TCP over TCP meltdown," a condition exacerbated when "two connections are running out of sync," according to Guerrero. In typical SSL VPNs, the secure tunnel has to accommodate these two nested TCP connections, which in turn imposes a drag on transfer speeds as the end-user system is constantly engaged in maintaining the SSL connection.
Therefore, NeoAccel is making the case for replacing IPsec VPNs with the company's technology. Aside from a low IT maintenance profile - since there are no end-user clients to lord over - the product also makes it possible to extend NAC-like access policies to remote systems as well as fine grained network segmenting controls to keep users outside of the corporate firewall from reaching resources they shouldn't.
Moreover, the SSL-based products open a lifeline to all types of workers, including those with handhelds as well as laptop toters. Another side effect is that users of "all levels of sophistication can log into networks," extending secure communications to every type of employee, not just the tech savvy ones, says Guerrero.
Join Us: http://bit.ly/joincloud
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