MCI Offers SSL VPNs With Aventail

ASHBURN, Va. -- MCI (WCOEQ, MCWEQ), and Aventail Corporation the leading SSL VPN product company, today announced they have joined forces to deliver best-of-breed SSL Internet Protocol Virtual Private Network (IP VPN) capabilities to businesses worldwide. Further extending MCI's leading global VPN portfolio, the new fully managed remote access service offers greater flexibility and enhanced security for organizations that want to more simply and cost effectively connect customers, partners and mobile workforces to their corporate networks.

Available immediately to U.S.-based companies with domestic and/or international users, MCI is integrating Aventail's award-winning SSL VPN technology into its new managed remote VPN solution to enable users to connect to corporate resources from anywhere, using any computing device. Now remote workers and business partners can simply use any Web browser from any PC or computing device, such as an airport kiosk, to securely access information stored on a corporate network.

"MCI's agreement with Aventail allows our customers to tap into an alternate, yet complementary VPN technology that delivers industry-leading security and access control," said Jim DeMerlis, MCI vice president of data and IP solutions. "We are seeing a growing trend among VPN customers to extend network privileges beyond their immediate corporate boundaries, so we are delivering a secure solution that is easy to implement internally and externally across multiple types of users."

With MCI's new SSL remote access VPN solution, businesses can designate and control access at the application layer -- to eliminate expensive direct network connections -- and support a broad set of individual access requirements and authentication methods. Because MCI's solution is 'clientless' no client software needs to be installed on a PC or computing device when accessing Web-based information over the Internet, effectively reducing the administration costs to configure, manage and support VPN users. Additionally, MCI's offering enables users to access client/server applications over the Internet with a Java applet client, running seamlessly in the background.

"This partnership brings together two powerhouses to deliver the necessary access required by today's enterprises," said Zeus Kerravala, vice president of enterprise infrastructure for the Yankee Group. "Through its partnership with Aventail, MCI can now fully extend remote access, securely, to PDAs, kiosks, home PCs, and laptops to boost productivity and broaden accessibility to applications and information for both employees and third-parties."

MCI's new SSL offering is unique in that it is integrated with the company's complete desktop remote access platform, Access Manager and its Remote Access Service administrator platform Enterprise Services Management (ESM). This provides IT administrators with a number of conveniences including simple password administration, the ability to centrally manage access policies and quickly move, add or change end users. In addition, customers have access to tools, software and detailed Web-based reporting that provides insight into individual online usage patterns among other metrics. Engineered to be highly redundant, the SSL service is backed by stringent service level agreements.

"Aventail's expertise in SSL technology is a perfect extension to MCI's industry-leading VPN product set," said Evan Kaplan, president and CEO of Aventail. "As MCI continues to expand its VPN customer base and VPN portfolio and more companies open their networks to employees, external trading partners and suppliers, SSL will play an important role enabling truly secure inter- business communications."

In a separate release:

ASHBURN, Va. -- MCI (WCOEQ, MCWEQ) today announced it is adding new end-to-end security capabilities to its Remote Access suite of services to help businesses better protect their information assets, while providing traveling and remote workers with simpler, more secure access to corporate resources. Throughout 2004, MCI is strengthening its built-in security features to include anti-fraud protection, stronger authentication, enhanced Denial of Service support and desktop policy enforcement as well as adding Secure Socket Layer (SSL) Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)-providing one of the industry's most complete remote access platforms available.

"There is no question that network and information security are of paramount concern for businesses of all sizes in every region around the world," said Nancy Gofus, MCI senior vice president, Product Management. "MCI's new remote access security features deliver secure network connections from an individual's desktop all the way through the network. As a result, our customers can operate with increased confidence, while ensuring the highest levels of productivity for their employees."

MCI

Aventail Corp.