Late to the VPN party, GTE brings some goodies

By Denise Pappalardo
Network World, 12/09/98

Cambridge, Mass. - After dropping hints for the past several months GTE Internetworking finally announced its VPN Advantage service this week - offering business users some of the highest levels of security and advanced Web monitoring tools to keep corporate networks safe and running smoothly over the Internet.

Although GTE Internetworking is the last of the large ISPs to launch a VPN service, GTE Internetworking is offering solid security with IETF Internet Security (IPSec) 128-bit key encryption support and X.509 digital certificates, real time Web-based management tools and guarantees.

VPN Advantage users will be able to connect their offices around the country via GTE Internetworking's Internet backbone or the public Internet using dedicated T-1 lines or dial-up analog connections. Customers will have the option of deploying a preconfigured TimeStep PERMIT/Gate and Shiva LanRover VPN Gateway Plus device at each of their dedicated VPN sites.

Although GTE Internetwork has taken its time in offering a VPN service, the company's lateness to the market "won't hurt them at all because the offers today from most competitors have been half-baked," says Jim Freeze, senior analyst at Forrester Research, a Cambridge, Mass. consulting firm. "GTE Internetworking's offer is the most comprehensive solution I've seen."

GTE Internetworking is also teaming with its sister company, GTE CyberTrust and Entrust to act as certificate authorities (CA), which handle the distribution and third party authorization of VPN Advantage users digital certificates. Each dial-up customer will be issued a digital certificate as well as each VPN device.

The CA authenticates and authorizes that the user is accessing the correct VPN network by matching up criteria that is stored in the CA's database. This is believed to be the strongest form of authentication available today, and it is one of the reasons why Crown Central Petroleum, is testing VPN Advantage.

"Authorizing clients is one of my requirements in setting up our VPN," says Miguel Montanez, Group Manager, Information Services at the Baltimore oil company. "Password and challenge was not going to be enough," he explains.

Crown remote and branch office employees that total 150 to 200 will be sending financial information over Crown's VPN, in addition to Crown's 246 convenience stores and gas stations also using the IP-based network, Montanez says. Security is a key factor in deploying Crown's VPN.

Montanez is still testing the service, but likes what he sees so far.

Users will not only get digital certificate support, which is not available from any other national ISPs today, they will get service level guarantees.

Dedicated VPN Advantage customers SLAs include 99.9% availability and a guarantee that users will not experience more than 125 msec of round-trip latency on GTE Internetworking's network. While 99.9% availability is standard in the industry and even exceeds other ISPs SLAs, users should keep in mind that this guarantee does equate to 42 minutes of allowed down time per month.

GTE plans on crediting users 1% of their monthly service charges for every .1% of missed availability, says Robert McKinney, director of VPN services at GTE Internetworking based here. For a customer that's paying $1,795 per month and has a connection that is only available 99.1% of the time in one month GTE Internetworking would credit that user $143.60.

Dial-up VPN Advantage customer's SLAs include a busy-free dial availability of 97%, and minimum modem connect speeds of 26.4K bit/sec 99% of the time or beat industry averages, which ever is higher. GTE Internetworking is using Inverse Networks monthly dial-up Internet access testing results as industry average and will post those results on its Web site.

Through management tools developed in house, all VPN Advantage customers will be able to access real-time information about their VPN on a special GTE Internetworking Web site. Users will be able to request reports, determine usage, establish trouble tickets and even revoke digital certificates almost instantly.

Dedicated VPN Advantage is slated for availability in January for $1,795 to $3,295 per month per T-1 port using 128K bit/sec to 1.544M bit/sec respectively. That monthly fee also includes all digital certificates, 24x7 network management and monitoring, and a VPN device. Dial-up VPN Advantage is $39.95 for 30 hours of usage per user, which is put into a total pool of hours for one company.