Shiva Corporation today introduced the Shiva VantagePath family of products and services for Virtual Private Networking (VPN).
VantagePath products and services are a core component of Shiva's strategy to enable business-grade connections across public data networks. For corporations and network service providers of any size, the VantagePath family provides the evolutionary framework for a new service model.
Direct-dial remote access will continue to grow; however, organizations of all sizes are beginning to explore VPN-based remote access, which makes use of the Internet for both dial-up and branch office connectivity. Building upon more than 10 years of remote access experience and award-winning technology, Shiva's VantagePath products allow organizations to integrate existing Shiva direct-dial access solutions with VPN remote access or implement standalone VPN solutions. VantagePath Network Services help corporations and network service providers successfully deploy dial-up networks with a migration path to a data dial tone future.
"VPN-based dial-in is a remote access problem. The only thing that's changed is the nature of the data network, which is moving to a packet switched network (the Internet) from the circuit switched network (the PSTN)" said Dave Margossian, telecommunication consultant for Corporate Voice and Data Planning at Polaroid. "We successfully partnered with Shiva to create an access solution based on the PSTN and we have already invested in Shiva's latest VantagePath technology to augment our solution with Internet based dial-up."
As the Internet has evolved from educational to consumer and now to business use, the role of the carrier has evolved from providing dial-up circuits to providing business-grade connections and reducing the complexity and cost of data networking. Shiva is well-positioned to help customers and carriers alike make this transition. Specifically, Shiva is working closely with Nortel and large service providers to develop the required features for tomorrow.
"We have worked with Shiva to pioneer virtual private dial-up network services. Through our unique Nortel Internet Thruway network solution, public carriers are delivering these services to ISPs and enterprises worldwide," said Maureen Crozier, assistant vice president, Nortel Internet Solutions Group. "We endorse the VantagePath strategy for business-quality connections over the public network and look forward to jointly ushering in the first wave of data dial tone."
"The combination of Shiva's products, customers and understanding of corporate remote access, coupled with our new management team, which has over 30 years of experience providing carrier solutions, is the recipe for success in the next wave of the access market," said James L. Zucco, Jr., president and COO of Shiva Corporation.
VantagePath Family
The VantagePath family consists of:
VantagePath Access Concentrator - The first carrier-grade remote access platform. Designed by Shiva and Nortel as the point of entry to a service provider's network, the VantagePath Access Concentrator offers the reliability and features required to create mission-critical, voice-grade data networks for public and private (VPN) dial. Unlike competitive products, the VantagePath Access Concentrator is a true carrier-class device, built by two leaders in their respective industries. Shiva provides a decade of experience solving multi-protocol remote access problems while Nortel provides decades of meeting the rigorous product requirements of carriers and service providers (see September 29, 1997 announcement by Shiva and Nortel).
VantagePath Network Gateway - A high-performance access switch supporting VPN-based dial-in. VantagePath Network Gateway supports multi-protocol access, packet encryption and the full suite of security options for corporations implementing remote access across public and private data networks. (see today's related announcement).
VantagePath Network Management -With VantagePath Network Management (NM), Shiva will be the first vendor to deliver the ease of use and completeness expected by enterprises, with the required scalability for network service providers. This suite of integrated tools will include support for element configuration, network diagnostics, monitoring and fault isolation, throughput and bottleneck analysis, and fraud detection. Building on its current technology components, Shiva will tailor the VantagePath NM for the emerging Telecommunications Management Network (N) infrastructure. Additional details on VantagePath NM will be released later this year.
VantagePath Network Services - VantagePath Network Services assist customers in designing, building and maintaining remote access solutions that fulfill their needs today and provide a path for incorporating the latest in VPN technology (see today's related announcement).
These services include:
Toll-Free VPN Hotline
2. Remote Access Design/Consulting Services
3. Deployment/Customization Services
4. Operational Management Services
Zucco added, "The corporations that will be most successful in the VPN era are the ones that maintain the benefits of their existing remote access implementation, while embracing the economics of the public data networks. All of the products and services we are announcing today will coexist with today's leading remote access devices such as the LanRover and LanRover Access Switch. Moreover, we will be extending our customers' invesent in Shiva hardware by bringing this new technology to our modular, extensible products such as the LanRover Access Switch and the recently announced LanRover D56."
Share
