use and manageability and its strong end point security and policy control. In the same time, SSL VPNs is also allowing enterprises to fully leverage the increasing availability of public infrastructure and the power of the Internet. Currently, the SSL VPN Industry is catching up in the Indian market, and the growth is expected more than 40 per cent this year.
Drivers behind the increasing popularity of SSL VPNs
SSL VPNs play a critical role in disaster recovery planning, serving as a secure application gateway at main data centers, back-up data centers, as well as hot, warm, or cold disaster recovery sites. SSL VPNs make accessing corporate network resources from remote locations easy for users and network administrators, because they provide clientless access from any device to any application with security and granular access controls.
In IT, compliant access to information resources must be provisioned according to defined policy and process in order to assure effective access controls as well as mandated separation of duties and division of responsibilities. These processes must be enforceable, yet sufficiently flexible to allow the business to meet its strategic objectives every day across a wide range of information assets, resources, users and consumers. The access provisioning process means that both users and information resources must be reasonably well defined and positively identifiable. Roles and attributes of users as well as resources must also be defined before provisioning processes can achieve their fullest effectiveness. Granularity of detail in definition is, therefore, a valuable feature of access provisioning and control solutions. VPN technology based on the SSL protocol meets many vital requirements in all three domains for protection and enforcement of common regulatory mandates. In particular, the flexibility, ease of administration, and proven security of SSL VPNs coalesce to help satisfy the three main needs of a compliance-aiding tool controls, processes, and audit worthiness. And, because SSL technology is included in standard Web browsers, SSL VPNs provide one of the most convenient options for secure access. SSL VPNs are effectively “clientless” in the sense that they eliminate the administrative headaches of distributing and managing VPN clients. This reduces the support burden relative to techniques used in solutions such as IPSec VPNs, which helps to increase the productivity of end users and IT. There are other advantages of SSL VPNs as well. Because SSL VPNs sit closer to the application layer than IPSec VPNs, they can more directly enable the fine-grained access control necessary for securing remote access, ensuring that only the right people in the right environments get access to the right resources.
In today's world, many threats originate inside the firewall. SSL VPNs allow IT organizations to authenticate and authorize users from anywhere, ensuring secure access to all resources. With in-depth access policy control and host integrity checking, SSL VPNs deliver an efficient, effective dose of NAC today, where it is needed most. According to Ajay Kumar, Country Manager, Aventail this is called as “Inverted Network”, which describes this shift in the network perimeter. The Inverted Network is a model for treating all users the same, internal and external, and treating all end points as dirty.
Aventail in SSL VPN Market
As India is emerging as market with huge potential, Aventail is quit excited about its presence in this market. The company is planning to establish itself as the leading player in SSL VPN space. Today, Aventail continue to focus on remote access while addressing the broader pain points that its solution is capable of handling like Mobile access, Disaster recovery, Compliance, Securing WiFi networks.
Aventail's SSL VPN gives all employees, partners, and other users a remote access solution that is easy to use and deploy. The innovative new features include the market's fastest, most comprehensive end point checking and the first integrated professional reporting solution for usage and user tracking. Aventail ST2+ is the only SSL VPN with official support for the new and popular Microsoft IE7 browser.
Aventail is the first remote access company to offer its customers a temporary license to prepare for planned or unplanned spikes in user traffic. The Aventail Spike License Pack is an add-on license that works like an insurance policy toward any future eventuality, when remote access needs could instantly rise by hundreds or thousands of additional users. During a business disruption, demand for remote access could spike to include the majority workforce. Disaster Recovery comes to use in case of bandhs etc. where in the employees can work from home. The company also offers Satellite based networks, which allows satellite offices to connect securely.
With its broad range of solutions, currently, Aventail is focusing on the IT/ITES, Manufacturing & Distribution and BFSI segments. Apart from that the company is planning to increase it focus in SMB segment this year. The company has also introduced an incentive scheme to create awareness for its products as well as expand its reach in the market. Under this offer, called Power of 5, channel partners can earn approximately Rs. 5,000 on selling an entry-level Aventail products and Rs. 30,000 on high-end products. This scheme, which began on October 1, will run for two quarters, terminating on March 31, 2007. Apart from this scheme, the company is also focusing on conducting 20 awareness programs across all the major cities to educate both the channel partners and the general public about security and the trends. Speaking on this front Ajay Kumar says “ The Indian market is maturing and the focus for Aventail has not only been the metros. Apart from cities like Bangalore , Mumbai, and Delhi which are big markets, we are also focusing on markets like Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai, Cochin, Madurai and Coimbatore.”
Currently, Aventail has around 20 channel partners along with one national distributor- Select Technologies. The company is planning to expand its channel base and it is targeting to have 30 trained Aventail Channel partners. Speaking on training front Ajay, says “We also will provide incentives to channel partners in terms of training in Singapore for all the performing partners.”
The future plan of Aventail is to enhance the business and increasing the headcount in Bangalore to 100 (which is currently 60).
Products in the Arsenal
Today, Aventail carries a vast portfolio of products and leads the industry in core SSL VPN functionality, manageability, usability, mobility and overall vision. Here are some of the products through which the company is planning to dominate the SSL VPN market in India .
EX-2500
The Aventail EX-2500 delivers the easiest secure remote access control solution for today's mobile enterprise, increasing user productivity while maximizing IT control, leading to greater return on investment (ROI) and lower total cost of ownership (TCO). It is built upon the enhanced technology of Aventail's best-of-breed ST2 SSL VPN platform.
The Aventail EX-2500 is well-suited for enterprises that:
- Support hundreds or thousands of internal and external
- Need clustering and high availability to ensure anytime access to critical applications
- Support large-scale deployments of SSL VPN services as Aventail Service Provider partners
EX-1600
The Aventail EX-1600 SSL VPN appliance provides secure remote access control for mid-sized organizations looking for a scalable enterprise solution. This latest release of our award-winning best-of-breed SSL VPN appliance provides employees, customers, and business partners with easy-to-use clientless access to network resources from any Internet-enabled device. It enables the users to increase productivity with fast, transparent secure access to a full range of critical Web and client/server applications-including e-mail and collaboration programs such as Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Notes, as well as key business applications from SAP, PeopleSoft, and Oracle.
EX-750 ( The easiest SSL VPN for small to mid-size organizations)
EX-750 provides employees and partners with secure access to the network applications and resources they need to be productive. The Aventail EX-750 delivers the benefits of Aventail's secure and easy-to-manage SSL VPN technology-on a smaller scale at a cost-effective price. Built on Aventail's powerful, proven SSL VPN platform, the EX-750 delivers true everywhere access to the broadest range of applications from any device. The EX-750 is a full-featured, clientless SSL VPN appliance tailored to companies or departments that will not grow beyond 25 concurrent users.
This robust solution is less expensive than our enterprise-class solution, yet built upon the same enhanced Aventail ST2 platform and award-winning Smart SSL VPN technology.
The EX-750 is well-suited for:
- Small to midsize companies or departments with no more than 25 concurrent users
- Satellite offices needing remote access
- Test systems or pilot projects for a department
Aventail Mobile Solution
Aventail's Mobile solutions include two main access options: WorkPlace Mobile and Connect Mobile . WorkPlace Mobile is ideal for unmanaged devices and Connect Mobile is designed for managed mobile devices.
- WorkPlace Mobile is a customized portal allowing easy, clientless access to Web-based applications from virtually any mobile device. It is ideal for unmanaged devices, because access is handled through a portal. Administrators can set up mobile access and non-mobile access easily and quickly for portal based access from any device browser, all accessible from a single URL.
- Connect Mobile is a light-weight, easy to install agent that provides Windows Mobile PDA users with broad access to both Web and client/server applications. Connect Mobile delivers an “in office” experience PDA users and is ideal for managed mobile devices. The Connect Mobile agent is Web deployed, giving the option of deploying it on-demand when needed or as a persistent agent. It provides a proxy connection directly to an application and does NOT provide a direct connection to the network like similar IPSec based solutions. With Connect Mobile, administrators receive granular access control to ensure authorized users receive access only to relevant and authorized content.
In the end
The demand for SSL VPN is steadily growing in India and the networking industry is going to witness a strong growth in SSL VPN space in near future. The SSL VPN market holds a huge potential and it can be tapped only by creating awareness of the technology. Beside that the growth in PC penetration and Internet availability is on the rise and these parameters will help the remote access market. It is anticipated that large organisations such as banks, ISPs, e-businesses, BPOs and e-traders will drive this technology. |
