SonicWall buys Aventail for big SSL VPN gear

SonicWall is buying Aventail for $25 million for its high-end SSL VPN gear that will make the company more familiar to larger customers.

SonicWall says its own SSL VPN gear will continue to be focused on small and midsize businesses, among which SonicWall's relatively inexpensive gear is popular.

SonicWall also promises new product lines based on a cross-pollination of the two companies’ technologies, but does not specify what they are. The company promising to maintain the Avenatail, high-end SSL VPN line and to improve it by adding finer controls over network access.

“We intend to maintain and improve both product lines, adding key new technologies to both the Aventail and SonicWall solutions based on our combined capabilities, such as intrusion prevention, gateway antivirus, distributed remote management and reporting, and endpoint control and access,” an FAQ posted on SonicWall’s Web site says.

SSL VPNs have proven popular over the past several years making significant gains on traditional IPSec remote access VPNs, according to Gartner.

Gartner ranked Aventail among the elite SSL VPN vendors. Synergy Research said the company was among the top four SSL VPN vendors for sales last year along with Juniper, Citrix and F5.

The deal is expected to close within 30 days, and in the meantime customers will continue to contact both companies through their usual channels.

Aventail products include SSL VPN gear for large businesses, and includes support for handheld devices and smart phones.

SonicWall has been selling SSL VPN gear for less than two years, while Aventail is among the oldest SSL VPN vendors. Last fall SonicWall made a run at making larger SSL VPN boxes in an attempt to capture more business from larger customers.

The addition of Aventail gear will allow SonicWall to compete for the largest customers.