Braun Consulting Selects AEP Systems’ SSL VPN to Provide Secure Remote Access for Employees Worldwide
Las Vegas – N+I Conference – May 11, 2004 – AEP Systems, the SSL VPN provider for small and medium businesses (SMBs), announced today that Braun Consulting, a professional services firm that delivers customer-focused business solutions to Fortune 1000 and mid-market companies, is using AEP SureWare A-Gate to provide secure email access to employees working in the field.
Braun Consulting’s Director of Network Services, Ron Hoering, was looking for a solution that would primarily allow employees to securely send and receive email directly from their laptops while working from clients’ offices and hotel rooms. With numerous consultants in the field, email access is a key requirement for the company. In March, Braun Consulting installed SureWare A-Gate and uses it to effectively handle the email requirements for its remote staff.
“We’re using SureWare A-Gate to create a secure SSL connection from a client located anywhere on the Internet back to our Microsoft Exchange server. Getting SureWare A-Gate up and running on remote laptops was so easy that it only took two hours, from opening the box and putting the unit in the rack to configuring the A-Gate. Employees all over the country connected over the Internet are using the A-Gate Central client and have found it simple to get their connection working.”
“The new VPN is excellent and the client install was easy. In the past I was sometimes unable to connect using our previous VPN, but so far this new SSL VPN solution has always worked. Being able to connect regularly while on the road allows us to focus on the work at hand and not on where we can find a place to ‘phone home’,” said David Reinke, Senior Vice President of the Enabling Technology Group at Braun Consulting.
“Because SureWare A-Gate allows the use of the full Outlook client, our consultants can download their email and take it with them. This makes them more productive and reduces our disk storage needs. Additionally, the SSL VPN works behind firewalls at our client sites so consultants are able to use the full Outlook client where they have never been able to before,” said Jim Oddo, CIO at Braun Consulting.
According to Hoering, other SSL VPN vendors quoted significantly higher prices for solutions offering only a quarter of the connections SureWare A-Gate AG-600 provides. “SureWare A-Gate is a very solid product with excellent functionality for a very reasonable price.”
Hoering first looked at SureWare A-Gate because AEP Systems’ SSL accelerator cards (SureWare Runner) are well respected in the marketplace. “It made sense to me to purchase an SSL VPN from a company that knows high-performance SSL. AEP Systems has an excellent reputation in the SSL market, so it seemed a natural choice to look at their SSL VPN product.”
As the company continues to grow, Braun Consulting can expand its use of SureWare A-Gate for more than Microsoft Outlook email access. Employees can also access applications via the hardware appliance including Lotus Notes, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel and legacy applications.
ABOUT BRAUN CONSULTING
Braun Consulting, Inc. (Nasdaq: BRNC) is a professional services firm delivering customer-focused business solutions to Fortune 1000 and mid-market companies. Braun Consulting combines cutting-edge business intelligence and CRM/eCRM technologies with business strategy to help clients build customer loyalty. By creating the necessary connection between technology and strategy, Braun builds effective business solutions that help clients drive business performance and cultivate long-term relationships with their most valuable customers. Founded in 1993, Chicago-based Braun Consulting has five offices throughout the U.S. Visit www.braunconsult.com to learn more about Braun Consulting.
ABOUT AEP SYSTEMS
AEP Systems (www.aepsystems.com), the high-speed security company, delivers hardware security and acceleration solutions that are fast and cost-effective to deploy. Customers include financial institutions, government bodies, healthcare organizations and OEMs. Founded in 1998, AEP Systems is privately held with its US headquarters in Palo Alto, CA, and offices in Europe and Asia-Pacific.