Aventail Introduces the Market’s First Smart SSL VPN

Seattle, WA — October 4, 2004 — Leading SSL VPN product company Aventail Corporation today announced the market’s first Smart SSL VPN, built on the proven Aventail Secure Access Policy (ASAPTM) Platform Version 8.0. The Aventail Smart SSL VPN sets a new standard for ease of administration and use, extending Aventail’s market leadership in policy management, application access, and End Point Control. The Aventail Smart SSL VPN platform will be available later this month on Aventail’s family of SSL VPN appliances and managed services.

“The Aventail Smart SSL VPN raises the competitive stakes in the secure remote access market,” said Jim Slaby, senior analyst at the Yankee Group. “It addresses the genuine but conflicting demands of two distinct constituencies in the enterprise space: IT managers seeking highly granular access controls with stringent security, and end users who need absolute ease of access.”

With Aventail Smart Technology, the SSL VPN automatically does more, so the end user and administrator do less, translating into higher productivity and lower costs.

The main new feature benefits of the Aventail Smart SSL VPN are:

· Aventail Smart Access: Easiest SSL VPN for end users, by automatically and transparently determining and deploying the most appropriate access method
· Aventail Unified Policy: Three times faster than any other SSL VPN to set-up with just one rule set for all resource types and access methods.
· Aventail Policy Zones: Most secure SSL VPN, allowing administrators to set granular access control rules based on the level of trust for an end point.

Aventail Smart Access makes access easier, faster, and more transparent for the end users, because it automatically determines the right level of access and deploys the most appropriate access method. The end user needs only to click on the desired application link, whether Web-based or Client/Server, and the method needed to access that application is launched behind the scenes in real time.

Aventail Unified Policy reduces the time and work for administrators by providing a centralized administration with just one rule set for all resources and access methods. Aventail Unified Policy is three times or more faster than other SSL VPNs, because defining rules for multiple access methods and types of resources is just one policy model versus three or more models with competing products, according to the company’s test results.

Aventail Policy Zones extend Aventail’s market leadership in End Point Control by allowing administrators to create multiple zones of trust based on the security of an end device. Unlike competing models that allow only “on” or “off” options of access control, Aventail Policy Zones allow three or more zones to be created, such as Trusted, Semi-Trusted, and Un-Trusted. For example, a user may only receive access to Web email from a Semi-Trusted home PC, while receiving access to a full range of resources from a Trusted corporate laptop. With the wide array of use cases and access requirements in today’s enterprises, three or more zones are needed to create the appropriate access policies that maximize both productivity and security.

“This is the most comprehensive SSL VPN solution available today and offers the best set-up and ongoing management experience in the market,” said Mark Schulstad, director of sales and marketing at Conjungi Networks, a provider of network security consulting services and product solutions and an Aventail partner. “With Aventail’s Policy Zones and unified management interface, administrators truly have the highest level of control with the lowest level of administrative overhead.”

The Aventail Smart SSL VPN will be available later this month via Aventail’s global partner network of value added resellers and service providers.

About Aventail
Aventail is the leading SSL VPN product company and the authority on clientless anywhere secure access. Aventail’s appliances and managed services deliver secure, seamless access from anywhere, to any application, on any device. Aventail is positioned in the Leader quadrant in Gartner’s 2004 SSL VPN Magic Quadrant and ranked as a Leader in the 2004 METAspectrum report on SSL VPNs. Aventail was also recently awarded “Best VPN” by SC Magazine. Major service providers such as AT&T, MCI, Sprint, SITA SC, and Bell Canada have built their SSL VPN managed service businesses on Aventail’s SSL VPN technology. To find out what Aventail customers like Aetna, DuPont, Office Depot, Sanyo, and TNT already know about Aventail’s SSL VPN, go to www.aventail.com.

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