Businesses have a new option for Secure Sockets Layer remote access equipment as NetScaler adds software to its Web-acceleration appliance.

The software adds authentication and authorization capabilities to its Request Switch 9000 iON appliance, making it possible for remote users to log on to the device and have it proxy SSL sessions to servers on the network. To initiate a session, the remote machine only needs a Web browser that supports SSL.

These new capabilities pit the company against a host of vendors that focus exclusively on SSL remote-access such as Aspelle, Aventail, Neoteris, Netilla and Whale Communications. All these companies share the fact that their boxes sit on the LAN side of corporate firewalls and proxy SSL sessions between remote users and corporate servers, although NetScaler says it improves the efficiency of these connections.

"NetScaler deals primarily with performance issues and may very well be ahead of the game at tying SSL VPNs to good performance for the applications being accessed," says Dave Kosiur, an analyst with Burton Group. He says NetScaler customers that consult with Burton give NetScaler good marks in the areas of filtering, acceleration and load balancing.

NetScaler's weakness is in securing the remote machine, Kosiur says. Nokia's and Whale's proxy appliances determine whether the remote machine is trusted, and based on this adjust how much remote users can access. So a user connecting from an Internet kiosk might be authorized to check e-mail while a user connecting from a company-issued laptop would be allowed access to all applications.

In the trade-off between security of the remote machine and performance, security wins, says Eric Walter, manager of network services for retail chain 7-Eleven, which is beta-testing NetScaler's new software. But he says lack of tools to alter access rights based on the type of machine accessing the network would not be a deal-breaker with NetScaler. Instead, he would restrict access for all users to a very limited subset of applications until NetScaler came up with a way to tailor access rights. NetScaler says those tools will be ready later this year.

7-Eleven has considered SSL remote-access gear from Nortel and other vendors, but found the types of applications that were accessible to be too limited.