Hello All

My company needs to upgrade its network access... there are so many
products out there from various telcos and networking companies, I need
to know what's best and most cost effective for my company...

Currently we have an aging fleet of Cisco 2500s and 2600s (and some
Systeks in some locations), serving serial connections to some equally
aging ADDS Viewpoint (or compatible) serial terminals.

These routers connect over 56k WAN links to our MVBASE server. MVBASE
is very connection-sensitive and rather finicky (we are using 1.3 with
all the patches); so I want to be sure whatever I choose would be okay
TCP connection wise.

I am tempted to look into devices and services that will take basic
Internet DSL and tunnel TCP traffic to our corporate office over the
Internet, has anyone done a MVBASE setup like this for a significant
number of business users...?

Thanks,
Gabe

I don't have an answer to your specific question but if you're now
working in a distributed environment you might want to consider using
a browser or other "less persistent" communications medium than telnet
for your applications. Surprisingly, mvBASE has more options open to
it these days for GUI/Web than it used to. Feel free to contact me to
discuss options.

Good luck in any case.
Tony
TG@ removethisNebula-RnD.com

Gabe wrote:

I had Mvbase 1.3.02 and 2.0 running on a customers system with 15
branch offices using internet connections. they did have 64K dedicated
phonelines and was able to save approximately 150,000.00 per year. I
installed Netscreen (now Juniper) small VPN/Firewall units at the
branch offices and a larger (NS-50) at the main office. These units
were very cost efficient, and very easy to install. I was running
telnet to all the branches and the VPN security provided all the
protection that was needed.

The branches had internet connections from isdn, dsl, and cable. and
very little problem of response time.

If you have additional questions please let me know.

Rodney Frisard

Hi Gabe,

We have 18 factories around the country all linking back to the head office!
Each factory has a 256k ADSL line into BT IP Clear and then back to head
office ( just a VPN setup ). All the users use a thin client winterm ( We
use Citrix to distribute the apps they require ) This makes things quite
secure as they only have a screen, keyboard and mouse, no drives or other
devices except a local printer!

We just have mvTERM as part of the application farm for them to use!

We have been running the ADSL solution for over 18 months now and it all
works very well! ( We did use to have a fixed lease lines before - so we are
saving a lot of money using ADSL now!! )

Each of the factories just has a Cisco 1700 and an 8 or 16 port hub!

Craig


<gabegreen (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote

Great,

This is giving me some interesting ideas to play with, at least. We
have in excess of 50 locations throughout the United States.. I want to
make sure we can scale to this level and be okay with a DSL-class
product.

I am currently looking at offerings from AT&T, Verizon, Megapath,
Speakeasy and New Edge....(does anyone have suggestions for a national
carrier...? :-)

Personally I'm completely in favor of a Citrix or RDP/Terminal Services
based environment (with MVTerm, Accuterm or the bundled thin client
emulators) but doing that would require a substantial investment in
client licenses and thin clients--an investment I am not sure the
people with the purse strings are prepared to make at this time.

Does anyone have any suggestions for CPE VPN devices to look into...?
Juniper networks hasn't been very good about getting back to me (I
believe I sent them a request for more information several weeks
ago)... Their product portfolio is so extensive; I just need something
relatively simple... Firewall/VPN device on the branch location end for
a couple of dumb terminals and maybe a PC or two per location...

Thanks,
Gabe

Craig wrote:

Gabe,

Not necessarily a solution, and yet ...

I imagine that one of the problems you are going to face is (on the $
front) to find a cost effective product that is going to be able to
drive your dumb terminals "and maybe a PC or 2 per location"

Assuming you DO have PC's at all points in the equation, perhaps all
you need is a VPN concentrator at Head Office (you COULD run using
Windows based VPN's, or perhaps using VPN client software from Cisco,
assuming you keep Cisco @ HO - all of the vendors will have
"something", though there may be "advantages" in using a
vendor/hardware based VPN). Your VPN can then operate via "consumer
grade" routers.

Anyway, if it helps, we have a PC based software product that allows
you to tie serial lines/com ports from a windows machine to the TCP/IP
stream, so the PC becomes a terminal server type device (also useful if
you need to run serial devices, like Worthington Data base stations, at
remote locations).

Another left field "solution", if you didn't really care WHERE the
server is, could be to investigate the hosted service offered by
EasyCo, who I know have there own solution to the serial comms issue

Finally, in terms of the notion of running VPN tunnels to HO, if you
remove the "using mvBase" restriction, then I believe you will find
that this scenario is commonplace - and for "just a little bit more"
you may find your carrier can offer you a packaged VPN solution using
their existing backbone

HTH


Ross Ferris
Stamina Software
Visage > Better by Design!

gabegreen (AT) gmail (DOT) com wrote:

I don't think the bang for buck is there with a Citrix solution.
Terminal services is just too heavy, IMO.

I have clients with multiple connections throughout the world easily
connecting back to servers over the Internet running even lowly 128k
ISDN (on the server). The clients are Telnet only, so trafic is pretty
light.

The server is behind a Cisco PIX Firewall and clients connect with
Cisco's VPN client software. This is secure, easy, and pretty
inexpensive because new hardware investment would be minimal and only
on the server side - Assuming workstations have Internet access.

--
Kevin Powick

We use Watchguard routers for VPN between sites, running standard "telnet"
clients on the PC. We experimented with a number of routers before settling
with Watchguard - the advantage being that we used to get frequent telnet
disconnects as the routers dropped and renogitated the VPN at regular
intervals. The watchguard just seems to work! http://www.watchguard.com

Regards
Simon

--
Simon Verona

<gabegreen (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote

Do you have some models to reccomend (for both the branch offices and
at the multivalue server host location..)

Thanks,
Gabe
Simon Verona wrote:

Depends on how many branches you have and how many pc's you have at each
branch..

We use the Firebox X5 for remote locations with less than 12 pc's. You can
migrate up to the X15 for up to 30 users and the X50 for more than that.

At the head office, you can use the same devices (the X5supports 2 VPN's so
is not much use, but the X50 supports 25.). For higher end stuff look at
the "X Core" range supports up to 50 VPN links to branches.

The watchguard also has various options. including multiple WAN ports (for
higher bandwidth and redundancy), traffic prioritisation (you could for
example make telnet traffic higher priority than spooler and email so that
your application doesn't "stick" when a large print or email is
downloaded!).

To be honest, if you are going this route, then you need an expert to put
the head office part together, it should be pretty simple to then roll out
the branch offices (the low end watchguards are pretty easy to configure).
Watchguard also do centralised monitoring and configuration software so you
can see if VPN's get dropped etc before you get the phone calls.

All in all, I've been pretty impressed with the equipment. It does exactly
as it says on the packaging, and at a much lower price point than Cisco -
which you need a degree in understand!

HTH
Regards
Simon



--
Simon Verona

<gabegreen (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote