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The proliferation of powerful smartphones and tablets poses a challenge for IT departments, such as providing secure remote access to network resources for a growing number of employees who use their own mobile devices for business purposes. With the introduction of the SonicWall E-Class SRA EX9000 running on the new SonicWall Aventail 10.6 architecture, SonicWall enables IT organizations to provide remote access for devices running Windows and Windows Mobile, Apple Mac OS and iOS, Google Android, and Linux.
Through a single appliance, SonicWall delivers full-featured access and control with user-friendly, clientless and client Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) virtual private network (VPN) connectivity for up to 20,000 concurrent mobile users. Together, the SonicWall SRA EX9000 and Aventail 10.6 equip businesses with compliant connectivity to corporate networks from a large array of mobile and remote devices.
Leveraging the recently announced SonicWall Mobile Connect client app for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch and existing Aventail Connect client for Android smartphones and tablets provides both IT-managed and employee-owned devices SSL-encrypted access to network resources. Some vendors only offer limited Web-based portal access, while others piece together their solutions with a Cisco client, the company said.
SonicWall Mobile Connect provides secure, full-featured, network-level SSL VPN access when using the company’s Secure Remote Access (SRA) for the SMB, Aventail E-Class SRA or Next-Generation Firewall appliances. Users or IT administrators can download the SonicWall Mobile Connect app via the App Store, and Aventail Connect can be downloaded from the Android Market.
“Gartner predicts that 90 percent of businesses will support corporate applications on mobile devices by 2014. Today, mobile devices are critical building blocks of business infrastructure,” said Patrick Sweeney, vice president of product management and corporate marketing at SonicWall. “While companies may no longer own the device an employee uses to access data, SonicWall gives network administrators secure remote access tools for business-critical applications on a massive scale over the broadest range of devices and OSes.”
The Aventail E-Class SRA conducts comprehensive interrogation and proactive remediation, establishing trust before access is granted to user devices running Windows, Mac or Linux OSes. Using endpoint control and strong authentication, the solution determines the identity of the user and the security posture of the device, and allows the appropriate level of access to network resources, including shared folders and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), client-server applications, intranet sites and email.