NeoAccell adds intelligent compression to its gateways

VPN vendor NeoAccell is upgrading its software this week to add a string of features, such as intelligent compression, to its SSL VPN-Plus gateways.

Intelligent compression checks out applications as they enter the VPN to cross over the WAN and determines how best to speed them up. The device can speed up an application by optimizing it and invoking compression to help reduce the number of bits crossing the wire. This reduces response times across VPN links.

The company sets itself apart from other VPN vendors with its use of what it calls intelligent connection acceleration architecture (ICAA), which reduces TCP sessions used in a VPN link.

The company says because its SSL VPN-Plus gateway uses fewer TCP sessions than other SSL gear to establish client/server connections between remote computers and corporate servers, fewer of those connections will drop. TCP retransmits data when packets are lost, and this can slow data transmission enough that client/server sessions time-out.

The company is also making IPSec support on the gateways an option with the new software release, as well as support for two-factor authentication to the devices.

It is introducing clientless mode, in which the remote machine needs no software client to make VPN connections, and a client-cleaning feature that removes data from the remote machine that was accessed or used to access corporate data during VPN sessions. It is also beefing up its policy engines.

Some of these enhancements are pretty much table stakes in SSL VPN gear. Customers might want to check this gear out to compare performance of ICAA vs. what other vendors can do.