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Securing VPN on the Move

Mobile Communications

Mobile Virtual Private Network (MVPN) is the key for exchange of business content between mobile users and the Internet and its usage is becoming increasingly important.

Mobile communications in business demands a high security level including securing the data transferred through public networks such as the Internet because of this VPN (Virtual Private Networks) technology is becoming more and more popular.

VPN technology is based on establishing a virtual tunnel across the public network between two end-points. The use of a virtual tunnel ensures that data is delivered to the correct destination and that it will be encoded in such a way, that only the recipient will be able to decode it.

Everywhere Like At Home

Si.mobil d.d. is the second largest mobile operator in Slovenia whose services include standard voice services and data transfer.

Si.mobil set up the project "Everywhere Like At Home", to offer their current and future GRPS (General Packet Radio Service) users a MVPN service that will connect them to their local environment settings no matter where they are connecting without the need for a VPN client or software. The service must be reliable, easy to use, follow the standards of IPsec and scaleable to meet future demands.

VPN encoded data additionally contains redundant data, that narrows the communication channels and depending on the coding methods this redundant data can take away 20% and up to 40% of bandwidth from data traffic in GPRS networks. GPRS itself supports traffic encoding so the additional VPN encryption is unnecessary.

At the initial planning stage of "Everywhere Like At Home", Si.mobil focused on ensuring the fast throughput of data on the GPRS network when establishing MVPN services without the end user having to worry about the VPN link. Plus Si.mobil knew that the traffic from GPRS to the Internet must be transferred in a different manner to provide their users with mobility and a secure connection to their company network using Internet and VPN technology.

"By using a standard VPN solution across the GPRS network a 'data loss' of up to 40% could be devastating for our customers", explains Aleš Zupan, Ph.D., from Si.mobil. "We needed a solution that would not only secure the VPN but would assist with performance rather than be a drain on it."

Si.mobil carried out intensive testing on a number of different VPN products and in particular were looking for a solution, which was efficient, easy to administer and would easily interface with other third party firewalls. They found that StoneGate was the only firewall and VPN solution which met all the service requirements.

'"StoneGate is definitely the solution that met all our criteria", says Andrej Stajič, IT Systems Manager. "Also due to its design, it is very easy to manage and the process of connecting with 3rd party firewalls and VPN systems is a relatively simple task. At the same time, the high availability part of StoneGate ensures the system reliability required in the telecommunications environment".

Worry Free

The GPRS tunnel is used to establish the call from the mobile user through mobile network to the Si.mobil's switch, from here StoneGate creates a VPN tunnel to the user's corporate network - data is exchanged between the corporate network and StoneGate by VPN and received by the end user from StoneGate via GPRS.

"The final result is that the end user can access their corporate network and their own environment settings without having to worry about VPN client/software and without any degradation of service because they are not using VPN over the GPRS link", explains Aleš Zupan.

We are very pleased with the interconnectability of StoneGate. It has been able to successfully establish VPN tunnels with any IPsec compliant products including some less well known firewalls and routers.

Aleš Zupan, Ph.D

StoneGate features a centralised, enterprise wide management system and powerful management tools that drastically reduce the administrative burden. The operating systems on the firewalls do not require separate administration and in fact can remain completely transparent. There is no need for separate operating system management at the firewalls themselves after the initial setup. Other supported features include rule base templates, inheritance, sub rule bases, multiple administrator levels, extensive log filtering and pruning tools and the possibility of managing firewalls simultaneously from multiple management GUI's.

StoneGate was quick to install and the administration control in StoneGate is excellent, which gives added security. The management system is very simple to operate and it is possible to section areas to give different people separate access rights so that one administrator could not accidentally gain entrance to the wrong area

Botjan Knap, Firewall and VPN specialist, Si.mobil

It is good to have a product which is easy to use, which meets our requirements whilst providing many features and benefits - we are very happy with the solution provided by Stonesoft.

GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) systems offer packet switched data, multiple channel transfer, constant connection (always on-line) and better responsiveness.

A significant advantage of the GPRS system is that network sources are engaged only when data is transferred. GPRS can be charged on the basis of quantity of downloaded data and not of time of occupying channels. Using GPRS mobile users will have a fast and more responsive mobile access to Internet services. Additionally, GPRS also gives access to information services, for example MMS, and fun services such as Java™ games.

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