Chicago - Hewlett-Packard says it will bolster its security line by reselling the Axent Technologies Raptor firewall and Aventail virtual private network (VPN) gear.
Axent, which gains an exclusive reseller deal with HP, will also work with HP to integrate Raptor with HP-UX and HP's "hardened" Web server called VirtualVault. HP will be focusing exclusively on the Raptor firewall in its marketing efforts for the foreseeable future and has no plans to sell other brands of firewalls.
"HP technical staff will have to have complete knowledge of the Raptor firewall," said Roberto Medrano, general manager of HP's Internet Security Operation, at the Computer Security Institute's 25th annual conference here.
With HP's vast sales and support channels in the U.S. and abroad, the firewall resale deal promises to be a boon to Axent. The loser, though, may be Check Point Technologies, whose Firewall-1 product was under consideration at one point by HP, as well. Axent's strong willingness to work with HP for future product plans may have been the factor that drove the arrangement.
"We decided we could have a good working relationship with Axent in both the technical and marketing areas," Medrano said. HP will resell Raptor's NT and Solaris versions as well as one for HP-UX.
HP's VirtualVault is widely used by the banking industry for Web-based services because it can compartmentalize applications and resists attacks that come in via common gateway interface scripts. Medrano said he expects to see the Raptor firewall and VirtualVault more closely integrated in the future so that the two products can share some types of security-related information that would assist in warding off hackers.
Under the deal to resell the Aventail VPN, HP is rounding out a security portfolio with a client/server software product that uses the Secure Sockets Layer and the SOCKS Version 5 protocols to authenticate users and set up an encrypted session between IP-based applications.
The Aventail VPN supports HP-UX, Windows NT, Sun Solaris, AIX, BSDI, Digital Unix and Linux, and will be available from HP starting Dec. 1.
RELATED LINKS
Axent merges with Raptor for firewall synergy
Network World Fusion, 2/5/98.
Burned by firewalls
Firewalls may be doing too good a job. Network World, 9/21/98.
