(Nikkei BP Group)
(No.1 High-Tech News Site in Japanese)
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| Many Products Fail NTT's VPN Interoperability Tests
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December 1, 1998 (TOKYO) -- Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. conducted
interoperability tests on 13 routers, firewalls and other products with
virtual private network (VPN) capabilities, but many of them failed
the tests, industry sources said.
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The tests were carried out by NTT's Business Communications Headquarters.
A VPN enables an enterprise to use a public network in the same way as
a private leased-line network. Among the features of a VPN is the ability
to encrypt the data transmitted on communication lines.
However, vendors use different encryption methods and key exchange protocols,
which can cause problems when data is routed via a variety of VPN products
deployed across a network.
One retailer that handles imported VPN products said that the store does
not collect information about product compatibility.
"Customers haven't particularly wanted to know if products work with
other vendors' products, and we just look into it if someone needs to
connect to existing equipment," he said.
NTT's Business Communications Headquarters has embarked on full-scale
testing of VPN product interoperability to shed light on the issues
involved.
According to industry sources, tests were conducted on a total of 13
VPN-capable products, including routers and firewalls. An interim report
on the various products was released to Japanese distributors.
"Even devices that worked relatively well with those of other vendors
only worked directly with between five and seven of the other 12 products.
After changing the configurations manually, interoperability with eight
products out of the 12 was about the limit," according to the report.
Also, the report stated that "on average, about half of the devices could
be interconnected with other vendors' products, and one of the devices
would not work with any of the others."
(Nikkei
Watcher on IT Business)
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