Aspelle makes the connection

Secure Sockets Layer remote access vendor Aspelle is making its gear more closely linked to IPSec VPNs with additions to its Version 3.0 of Aspelle Suite.

The Aspelle software will now send traffic as SSL, HTTP or HTTP-S through an existing IPSec VPN tunnel. These options make it possible for the Aspelle gear to establish connections to remote machines through the tunnel even if it must travel through a firewall that blocks SSL traffic.

This way a site-to-site IPSec VPN between two VPN gateways can be enhanced to limit the access of individual users at each site as they access resources through the tunnel. The link is secured by the IPSec tunnel and each user must be authenticated and authorized separately. Otherwise the tunnel grants network level access to any user who has access to that tunnel.

The company is also expanding on its integration with Microsoft products, following up on a close development relationship it has had with the software giant since its beginning. Management of Aspelle software is being made compatible with Microsoft Management Console so it is readily available and familiar to many users. The software also is compatible with Microsoft Active Directory to authenticate users, eliminating the need for separate authorization entries on the Aspelle access server.

Aspelle has also developed proxying capability among its servers. Until now, remote users would make a connection to a single publicly reachable Aspelle server and it would proxy between the remote user and applications on a secure network. But many businesses are tiering their security zones so an application may be buried behind multiple firewalls. In this case, users can install an Aspelle server behind each firewall and they can proxy to each other, creating a chain of SSL sessions that lead to the application the authorized remote user desires.

To make it simpler for companies to set up trial use of Aspelle gear, the company is packaging its software with Microsoft software that is necessary to support Aspelle remote access networks. This bundle includes the Aspelle software plus Microsoft’s ISA server, Windows 2000 server, Windows Terminal server, and Active Directory. This bundle will eliminate the need for customers to wait for help from Aspelle to integrate the SSL remote access platform with their existing network. Instead, they can set up a freestanding system.