Soothing VPN Pain and Centralizing IT
Our readers comment on the January 2002 issue.
Hitting Home Anil Desai's article in the November 2001 issue ("Secure Connections") was very interesting. It hit home here at eTunnels (in fact, I wish I'd written it). We're doing a lot of white paper generation these days in preparation for a significant launch of our VPN solution in January. The "eTunnels Extraprise" solution is very much in line with the perspectives he presents in his article. I'd be interested in Anil's reaction to our solution. Check out our Web site at
www.etunnels.com—the site is undergoing significant content and navigation upgrades in support of our January release, so it doesn't tell the whole story yet.
—Chris Edwards
eTunnels Inc.
chris@etunnels.com
Thanks for the excellent feedback on the article. I took some time to check out the eTunnels Web site, and it looks like you're definitely addressing what I've heard to be the biggest pain points for VPN deployments. Specifically, I often get feedback about how to manage VPN solutions. It seems that a lot of people aren't aware of the many different ways in which VPNs can be implemented. Originally, the technology was pitched mainly as a remote access solution, but it's much more powerful. It seems to me that vendors often concentrate on just one piece of the puzzle.
—Anil Desai
Central Solution
It appears in the business community today that the bright and shining middle managers who drove the initiatives to decentralize IT and move processing to Windows NT and Unix workstations are sputtering out. Executives are becoming more in tune with lowering IT costs by going back to a central complex that is less complicated to maintain. In addition, the accuracy of the reports coming from a central place is greater than having bits and pieces dragged in from multiple workstations.
Not only that, but Gartner Inc. gave the kiss of death to Windows enterprise solutions when they said that Windows was now and would remain one of the least secure platforms on the market. With companies getting ready for the big e-business push so they can eliminate marketing costs, they're going to want a secure server and one that has unlimited growth potential.
—John Regus
Houston, Texas
jfregus@ix.netcom.com
Check out Roberta Bragg's security column this month, "Does Big Iron Guarantee Security? Maybe," for more on the Wintel versus mainframe security question.
Web Services Report
I read with interest Linda Briggs' editorial "Reinventing Software" (October 2001). I was looking to subscribe to the Web Services newsletter and visit your Web Services Report Web site, referenced in your article, but I'm not finding it. Thank you very much!
—Dwight Baer
Info-Tech Research Group Inc.
London, Ontario Canada
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