AT&T has started delivering Aventail’s line of managed SSL VPN services on a controlled basis, and will go to full general availability in the second quarter. AT&T executives said the carrier is augmenting its VPN portfolio by offering the services.

SSL VPNs work at the application layer, allowing encrypted remote access to behind-the-firewall applications via a browser on essentially any computer, without the need for a VPN client. ATT described the technology as a complement to IPSec, or network layer, VPNs, which will likely remain the standard for site-to-site tunneling.

In some remote access circumstances… the use of IPSec is problematic, ATT’s director of IP VPN strategy Jonathan Cohen said, referring to occasions when roaming workers are trapped behind a foreign firewall. We have heard enough times from customers ‘How are we going to address this?’

The service will be sold by both companies, with Aventail throwing most of its weight behind selling via AT&T rather than other channels. The companies will share support duties, and the service will be managed by Aventail’s staff. AT&T’s Cohen hinted that a deeper integration of services is possible in future.

Our sales people have incentives to sell through AT&T, Aventail CEO Evan Kaplan said. While we have other [reseller] relationships we believe AT&T is our tier-one relationship, and very important for us. He added that privately held Aventail expects to see a significant portion of its revenue from the deal.

As well as fulfilling a customer demand, AT&T is also hedging its bets by ensuring that it offers both flavors of VPN service. Infonetics Research last week predicted the application layer VPN market will hit $1bn by 2006.

IDC said last month that AT&T is already the US’s leading VPN service provider by revenue market share, with 7.7% of the $2.3bn 2002 market. The top ten providers in the US shared 36.5% of the market, with other providers making up the rest, IDC said.

For Aventail, the deal should mean the company has a pretty good chance of being one of the survivors in its emerging market. The company recently launched SSL VPN appliances, but has offered them as managed services for some time, while its rivals sell appliances and software, and this experience helped it win the AT&T deal.

Source: Computerwire