Upcoming Events

Cloud Connect
Santa Clara
Feb 13-16, 2012

Cloud Connect brings together the entire cloud eco-system to better understand the transformation we're experiencing and promises to be the defining event of the cloud computing industry. Learn about the latest cloud technologies and platforms from thought leaders in Cloud Connect’s comprehensive conference.

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Unlocking V irtual Private Networks

Driving the VPN Market
One driving force behind the IPSec initiative is the Automotive Network Exchange (ANX). The challenge facing ANX is how to let trading partners get into your network to pass data securely yet restrict that same access. Not only do you need a scalable solution (the automotive industry has thousands of trading partners), but you also have to manage the connections in a highly dynamic environment.

ANX's series of IPSec interoperability tests this spring and summer brought in firewall vendors, such as Check Point, network encryption vendors, such as TimeStep and RedCreek, FTP Software, and a certificate authority (CA) vendor, Entrust Technologies. The purpose of the testing was to flush out pro blems in standard implementations. TimeStep ran development interoperability with Entrust's CA, FTP Software has been working with Check Point to provide secure communication with FireWall-1 without having to use Check Point's Secure Remote client.

On the remote-access front, the developers of Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) and Layer 2 Forwarding (L2F) have joined forces to work on a broader, more robust solution, namely Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP). L2TP combines the best of PPTP and L2F into a robust, versatile protocol that will be supported early on by the larger remote-access vendors, promising widespread deployment when the protocol is fully functional. However, L2TP is still several months away from standardization and adoption.