Site-to-Site VPN
In a distributed business model, branch offices and POS locations extend a company's reach into key markets, but that communication link must be available 24/7 and be able to support the business's applications. VPN solutions help companies establish centralized control over branch offices, point-of-sale (POS) locations, or remote kiosks providing the robust security and performance needed for business continuance. Firewall/VPN solutions enable secure, high-speed communications between multiple locations.
Internet security appliances offer performance, reliability, and availability that businesses need to communicate. Traditional site-to-site connections require companies to lease expensive, dedicated data lines that are difficult to deploy and manage. With the advent of affordable broadband and standards-based VPN, organizations can deploy secure remote access via ubiquitous Internet connections. With today's VPN technology and broadband connections, companies of any size use the Internet to securely communicate with their multiple locations.
Hardware vs. Software-Based VPN
There are two main types of security and remote access options available today: software and hardware. Software-based firewall/VPN gateways running a computer or server have inherent problems.
- A general-purpose computer is not the most reliable device for the processing demands of security, firewall/VPN applications are data intensive, and placing these processing demands on a computer or processor can slow down the network.
- A general-purpose computer's operating system isn't designed with bulletproof security in mind. Configuring computer-based firewall and VPN gateways require that you harden the operating system. This means ensuring the operating system always has the latest security patches to fix new security flaws.
- The complexity of current software configurations has been problematic, particularly ease-of-use and management.
- The hardware-based firewall/VPN solutions, typically embodied in security appliances, protects the entire network and offloads all the firewall and VPN processing from the computers. Because security appliances protect the network at the Internet gateway, they provide a platform for seamless local or remote management of all security and remote access services. A security appliance is a solid-state platform with a powerful onboard processor to handle the demands of firewall and VPN processing.
Remote Access VPN
One of the fastest growing remote access applications is telecommuting. Recent analyst studies predict a total of 32 million Internet-connected telecommuters in the US alone by 2004. By 2005, the worldwide telecommuting population is expected to reach 137 million. Telecommuting is changing the way 21st-Century companies operate, bringing considerable benefits to both employers and workers.
- Companies can expand their labor pool, to attract the most talented employees regardless of location.
- Operations can be expanded quickly and cost-effectively without opening additional branch offices.
- Employee productivity increases with reduced commuting time and fewer daily interruptions.
VPN solutions make it easy for your organization to meet the challenges - and reap the benefits - of telecommuting. Innovative technology seamlessly extends corporate-level security and privacy all the way out to your telecommuters, regardless of their home networking environments. This gives you the control you need over all remote access points, and ensures the security of your company's network. And for laptop computing, Global VPN Client secures connections for employees requiring secure access to business-critical network resources from various locations. Our award-winning Global Management System (GMS) provides control over widely distributed networks and can scale to accommodate enterprise growth objectives while easily managing and reporting on remote access locations.
Network Protection
Internet security appliances protect confidential information stored on private networks from Internet hackers. The all-in-one Internet security appliances offer state-of-the-art access security with an ICSA (International Computer Security Association) certified firewall to detect and thwart all known hacker and DoS (Denial-of-Service) attacks. Internet Security Appliances support seamless integration of an expanding array of value-added security services.
Internet security appliances are built on stateful inspection firewall technology, the most effective way to protect network access. Stateful inspection technology tracks each packet traversing the firewall and makes sure that they are legitimate. Designed into every Internet security appliance are:
- Stateful Packet Inspection®
Stateful inspection technology tracks each packet traversing the firewall and makes sure that they are legitimate. A stateful inspection firewall also monitors the state of the connection and complies the information in a state table ensuring that the source and destination of each packet is valid. This enterprise-class technology is designed into every Internet security appliance.
- Network Address Translation (NAT)®
NAT is a technique that hides the IP addresses of your internal computers from prying eyes by replacing them with a single public IP address.
- Monitoring and Logging®
Keeping records of attacks is important. It will help you analyze your security needs and provide you with feedback on the performance of your firewall.
Hardware vs. Software Based Firewall
There are two main types of security and remote access options available today: software and hardware. Software based firewalls running a computer or server have inherent problems.
- A general-purpose computer's operating system isn't designed with bulletproof security in mind. Configuring computer-based firewall gateways require that you harden the operating system. This mean ensuring the operating system always has the latest security patches to fix new security flaws.
- The complexity of current software based firewall and VPN products have been problematic; particularly ease-of-use and management. Hardware based firewall solutions, typically embodied in security appliances, protects the entire network. A security appliance is a solid-state platform with a powerful onboard processor to handle the demands of firewall processing. Because security appliances protect the network at the Internet gateway, they provide a platform for seamless local or remote management of all security and remote access services.
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