Companies are increasingly turning to Internet-based virtual private networks (I-VPNs) to provide data, voice and video services between central site, remote branch office and small office/home office (SOHO) locations.
A key reason, according to Cabletron Systems SA country manager, Martin May, is cost savings.
"Compared to the high cost of private leased lines for wide-area networks, the Internet-based VPN is around 50% cheaper. This means that the cost of an average I-VPN solution can be recovered in six months or less," says May.
He says I-VPNs are fundamental to South African companies` efforts to achieve global reach and enable customer service - any time, anywhere, anyhow - in support of new business applications in the Internet economy.
In line with this trend, Cabletron has released a new suite of I-VPN solutions designed to assist companies with legacy WANs to migrate to the Internet - by adding I-VPN solutions to their existing infrastructures.
"The Cabletron solution set includes application-aware I-VPN routing platforms, directory-enabled service level management applications and support for key industry standards," explains May.
He says a number of key issues surround the decision to adopt I-VPN technology and thus trust important business applications to the Internet.
"These include security, performance, reliability and quality of service. It is also critical that the I-VPN solution selected provides flexible, high-performance manageability between central site, and regional and branch offices."
Central to the Cabletron I-VPN offering are two new series of SmartSwitch Routers (the SSR 600 and the SSR 700 platform).
The SSR 600 is available as a stand-alone platform, or as an integrated, high-speed interface module (HSIM) for Cabletron`s SmartSwitch 2000/6000/9000 series of application-aware switches.
The SSR 600 features two 10/100 Ethernet interfaces and two modular WAN interfaces (SWPIMs). IPSec and L2TP protocols with wire-speed, hardware-based compression, DES/3DES encryption and public key acceleration deliver support for hundreds of site-to-site I-VPN tunnels.
May says Cabletron is able to deliver VPN solutions over all major "last mile" access technologies, including cable, xDSL, PPP, Frame Relay, ISDN and wireless connections.
With security on the Internet paramount in most user`s minds, Cabletron has moved to license cryptography performance software from Information Resource Engineering. Their SafeNet technology, when combined with the SSR`s wire-speed, application-aware routing, will allow Cabletron to deliver secure VPN transmissions at 100 Mbps throughput levels throughout the enterprise.
"Cabletron`s entire range of SSRs is interoperable with application-aware, Layer 4 QoS abilities," notes May. This provides scalable, end-to-end links from the enterprise to the service provider for data, voice and video communications at narrowband as well as broadband speeds.
"Complementing the differentiated service levels employed within a service provider`s managed VPN offering, Cabletron`s QoS, directory and policy mechanisms enable businesses to enforce priorities and bandwidth allocation among various applications and users," he adds.
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