Welcome to the latest issue of the VPNC Update. We hope you find the news in this issue valuable.
Happy new year! The VPN Consortium is happy to be starting our ninth year of service, and look forward to providing more leadership in the virtual private network market, including much more interoperability testing.
Both the SSL VPN and IPsec VPN markets continued to thrive during 2007. There were new vendors in both markets, and some long-time IPsec vendors added SSL VPNs to their lineups, sometimes expanding their current gateways, sometimes adding separate SSL VPN gateways. Five members joined VPNC in 2007. Our membership now stands at 31 companies, including nearly all the significant players in the IPsec and SSL VPN markets.
We added two new logos to our extensive lists of interoperability testing: SSL Basic Network Extension and SSL Advanced Network Extension. The SSL Basic Network Extension test is for basic network extension functionality: secure tunneling of normal IP traffic through SSL to an internal network protected by the SSL VPN gateway. The SSL Advanced Network Extension test determines whether or not the SSL VPN gateway can trap and securely tunnel all traffic coming from a remote access client, even traffic not destined for the internal network.
Systems that received the Basic and/or AES interoperability logos for new IPsec systems include those from Check Point, Cyberoam, D-Link, Mocana, NETGEAR, and Nortel Networks. New SSL VPN logos went to NETGEAR and Stonesoft. Over a dozen systems which had significant software upgrades were re-tested and passed the tests. There are now 61 systems with interoperability logos actively being tested and retested in the VPNC lab.
VPNC's members saw two industry trends in 2007 that may show how the industry will go in the coming year or two. The customer demand for IKEv2 is much lower than expected, which has caused many IPsec vendors to hold off on their deployments of IKEv2 in their VPN gateways. The systems that have received the VPNC IKEv2 Basic Interoperability logo are still mostly from OEMs, not commercial vendors. At the same time, SSL VPNs have captured more mindshare in the secure remote access market, which was supposed to be where IKEv2 would make inroads.
Looking forward, VPNC plans to start testing for additional logos in 2008, assuming that there is enough interest from VPNC's members. Given the rapidly-increasing interest in IPv6, we are hoping to offer an IPv6 logo for IPsec systems. A year ago, we said: "It seems that every year for the past five years has been touted to be 'the year of IPv6', but few VPN vendors have fully implemented it in their IPsec gateways." The recent news that there will be a severe shortage of new IPv4 addresses starting in just a few years has caused many organizations to begin serious research for their IPv6 transition and adoption, and most of those organizations already are heavy users of IPsec VPNs. These organizations will want some assurance that their VPN systems will work correctly with IPv6 as they start their deployment, and VPNC can offer real-world interop testing for both IKEv1 and IKEv2 use of IPv6.
In addition to the hoped-for IPv6 interoperability testing, we are talking to members about additional IPsec and SSL VPN testing initiatives that may appear as logo programs this year. Given all this, 2008 looks like another year of growth for the VPN industry and for VPNC.
This month, VPNC welcomes two new members: Secure Computing and WatchGuard.
Secure Computing, a leading enterprise gateway security company, delivers a comprehensive set of best-of-breed solutions that help customers protect their critical Web, email, and network assets. Over half of the Fortune 50 and Fortune 500 companies are part of the Secure Computing customer base of more than 19,000 global customers worldwide. Secure Computing's SnapGear business unit focuses on distributed environments, small to medium sized enterprises, and custom networking devices for a broad set of industries.
Since 1996, WatchGuard Technologies has provided reliable, easy to manage security appliances to hundreds of thousands of businesses worldwide. The Firebox X family of unified threat management (UTM) solutions provides a combination of strong, reliable, multi-layered security. All products are backed by LiveSecurity Service, a support and maintenance program. WatchGuard is a privately owned company, headquartered in Seattle, Washington, with offices throughout North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America.
2008 looks like another banner year for VPNC's interoperability testing efforts. We already have many new systems in the lab in various stages of testing, and other members have told us to expect new systems for both IPsec and SSL VPN testing in the coming months.
This month, two members received both the IPsec Basic Interoperability logo and the IPsec AES Interoperability logo for newly-tested systems:
Also this month, two members with current IPsec logos had significant new software and successfully retested for both the IPsec Basic Interoperability and IPsec AES Interoperability logos:
See the VPNC testing page for full lists of all the VPNC members' products which have proven interoperability.
AEP Networks
AEP Networks and BeCrypt Join Forces to Offer Agile Trusted Mobile Working
Certicom
Certicom Reports Results for Second Quarter of Fiscal 2008
eSoft
eSoft Named "Industry Innovator" by SC Magazine in Two Categories
eSoft
eSoft Named SC Award 2008 Finalist
D-Link
D-Link Named 'Best-Seller' By CRN Magazine In Wireless Networking Category
F5
F5 Named Reader Trust Finalist in 2008 SC Magazine Awards Program
F5
F5 Achieves SAP Certified Integration of Application Security and WAN
Optimization Solutions
Juniper Networks
Juniper Networks Positioned in Leaders Quadrant of Leading Analyst Firm's SSL
VPN Magic Quadrant
Juniper Networks
Dexia Banks on Juniper Networks Security Offerings to Provide Comprehensive
Network and Application Protection
Mocana
Mocana Partners with Embedded OS Vendor QNX to Provide
Complete Device Security Solution
Secure Computing
Secure Computing Achieves OPSEC Certification From Check Point
SonicWALL
SonicWALL TZ 180 TotalSecure Named One of the 10 Best Products of the
Year by CMP Channel's CRNtech
Stonesoft
Stonesoft helps managed service providers offer new services to their customers
Stonesoft
StoneGate SSL VPN receives Virtual Private Network Consortium certification
TeamF1
TeamF1 Launches AuthAgent TACACS+ for Embedded Devices
WatchGuard
WatchGuard Takes Top Market Share Segments
WatchGuard
WatchGuard Named Reader Trust Finalist in 2008 SC Magazine Awards Program
The VPNC Update is a low-volume, one-way newsletter to inform people about news in the VPN industry. Subscription is open to everyone, members and non-members alike. Previous issues of the newsletter can be found here. If you have questions about the content of VPNC Update, or suggestions or information for future issues, please send them to Paul Hoffman, VPNC's director.
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