AT&T, Aventail tout SSL VPN service

AT&T is teaming with Aventail to offer what the companies say is a more flexible VPN choice for remote and extranet access.

AT&T is expected to announce this week that it is reselling Aventail's Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) VPN service. The offering would let customers extend the reach of VPNs to business partners and remote users.

SSL offers an additional level of flexibility because it authenticates at the application level, while IP Security (IPSec), which AT&T also offers, authenticates at the network layer, says Steven Harris, analyst at IDC.

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AT&T is teaming with Aventail to offer what the companies say is a more flexible VPN choice for remote and extranet access.

AT&T is expected to announce this week that it is reselling Aventail's Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) VPN service. The offering would let customers extend the reach of VPNs to business partners and remote users.

SSL offers an additional level of flexibility because it authenticates at the application level, while IP Security (IPSec), which AT&T also offers, authenticates at the network layer, says Steven Harris, analyst at IDC.

"SSL works best for extranet connectivity where a business may only want to give a user access to certain Web-based applications," he says. "But for users that need full LAN access, IPSec is the better choice."

Because SSL initiates a session for each application a user accesses, it would be cumbersome to use SSL for remote users who might need to access many applications on a corporate LAN, Harris says.

IPSec VPN access requires that users deploy a software client on their laptop or desktop. SSL VPN access lets users access a VPN using a standard Web browser, which adds another level of flexibility, especially for business-to-business environments.