Aventail Adds Secure Desktop To VPN Appliance

An optional add-on to Aventail's rack-mounted EX-1500 SSL VPN appliance, Aventail Secure Desktop technology sends an applet from a firm's VPN to any particular PC that an authorized, remote user employs to access the network. The Secure Desktop applet then cordons off a section of the client's hard drive to work as the exclusive repository for all data stored on the remote client during the secure session, said Sarah Daniels, vice president of product management and marketing at Aventail, Seattle.

Once the session is complete or if the connection is interrupted, Aventail Secure Desktop erases all record of the secure communication between remote client and VPN, including temporary files, cookies, browser history, auto-complete passwords and viewed e-mail attachments, Daniels said.

Licensed technology from end-point security company Sygate Technologies, Fremont, Calif., strengthens the Aventail offering. Deletion of residual session data is performed to Department of Defense standards, Daniels said.

Aventail Secure Desktop supports 1,000 concurrent users and can be clustered to accommodate more, Daniels said.

Joseph Dell, CTO of Vigilar, an information security and risk management solution provider and Aventail partner based in Atlanta, said he usually recommends Aventail to his customers because of the product's ease of management. Dell favors Secure Desktop's rich feature set over similar products he sells from Cisco Systems, Nokia and F5 Networks, he said. "They also have built-in clustering, and at no extra cost," Dell added.

Available in the second quarter of 2004, the Aventail Secure Desktop starts at $2,200.