* Call for input on reader's VPN problem
A reader asks for a solution to the following problem. If you can help, please write in.
The company she works for sends consultants to its customer sites, and they need to access headquarters while they are making these visits. So she has installed a SonicWall IPSec VPN for them to reach the corporate network securely.
The consultants also need to access their clients’ networks when they are at their own corporate headquarters or traveling or working from home. The clients are willing to give them access via whatever remote access method they use, which include an SSL VPN gateway made by Neoteris (now Juniper) in conjunction with Citrix, a Cisco gateway in conjunction with Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), Citrix on its own and a Nortel Contivity VPN gateway.
The problem is if she loads all this software on one laptop, they interfere with each other and she’s lucky if she can get any of them to work. Because the various clients want to grab the same files or squeeze into the IP stack at the same point, there is little hope of getting them to cooperate, even with extensive tinkering. And that doesn’t address the problems applications on the laptop might have dealing with the clients.
Her goal is modest. She wants to get laptops to communicate with her corporate headquarters and just one customer headquarters. Naturally she’d like to do this by investing as little as possible in her own infrastructure and by requiring as little cooperation as possible from her customers.
She is willing to consider any mix of technologies or services, but the goal is to keep the number of vendors and the cost minimal.
Send suggestions and we’ll discuss them here later. And thanks.
