* Determining why you need an SSL VPN and what features it should have
SSL vendors are always making announcements about their fabulous new features and it’s important to know when not to pay attention.
For example, if a vendor comes out with the ability to rewrite FTP files so you can do file transfers across the SSL VPN, that could be great. Your remote users will be able to FTP from anywhere. But if your business doesn’t call for FTP transfers, so what?
This feature madness is something to acknowledge at the outset when you are evaluating SSL VPN products, according to Joel Snyder, who tests products for Network World and who presented lessons learned about testing SSL VPN equipment during the recent Interop show in Las Vegas.
He says the problem arises if you write down all the features a product offers on a spread sheet, then write down all the features another product offers on the spread sheet (adding columns as necessary), and so on until you have an unreadable but comprehensive chart.
The right way to go about it is to sit down and define why you need an SSL VPN in the first place and translate that need into a set of required features. Then go out and check products to see whether they have those features. You can even make a spread sheet.
When you get a few products that fit the bill on paper, test them, Snyder says. What’s on paper may or may not be true and even if it’s all true, one vendor may perform some tasks better than others or their configuration GUI just might be much easier to use. “SSL is really young and testing is important,” Snyder says.
More from Snyder’s presentation next time.
