phion presents netfence 3.4: Branch Office Box with a click

Innsbruck, Aug 01, 2006 – phion Information Technologies presents the new netfence version 3.4. The new release offers phion customers a number of new functions - for instance, they can now use Branch Office Boxes (BOBs) in their company branches. phion BOB enhancements integrate security functionality with traffic intelligence and WAN optimisation, so that even the most demanding applications in the branch offices are up to speed.

"Now that release 3.4 of netfence has arrived, Branch Office Box which we've heard so much about is finally a reality. phion customers can now seamlessly integrate their branch offices into business processes while coming closer to consolidating their networks", says Dr Klaus Gheri, CTO at phion Information Technologies. "phion is the first vendor to offer a combination of security, traffic intelligence and high-performance WAN optimisation for branch office solutions - and all this at an extremely attractive price."

phion BOB - the new generation of branch office solutions
Leading market experts agree that the future of Wide Area Networks (WAN) will to a large extent be determined by the Branch Office Box (BOB). BOBs combine the advantages of decentralised security solutions (firewall/VPN) with traffic intelligence and WAN optimisation. Technologies such as compression, hardware encryption and application optimisation are united in one device.

With the new netfence release 3.4, phion gives its customers the opportunity to enter the next stage of secure and available branch office networking. phion branch office solutions are per se BOB compatible, so relevant functions can be activated with a 'one-click rollout'. BOB enhancements for netfence 3.4 include compression algorithms for all netfence products and enablement of hardware encryption for sintegra S appliances. This means a gain in bandwidth of 200-300%. In future, increases of up to 1000% are realistic. The purchase price of €450 per box is only a fraction of the cost for a conventional WAN optimisation controller (WOC) with far fewer functions.

Further highlights of phion netfence 3.4
The netfence release 3.4 features a number of improvements and new functionality in all areas. Here are just some of the highlights:

- A new firewall rule designer: The key element of the configuration interface is now more transparent and is characterised by uncompromising functionality.
- Enhanced multimanagement: netfence Management Centre 3.4 offers multimanagement for a variety of platforms (Crossbeam, phionOS), appliance versions, releases and product versions (gateways, sintegra, sectorwall, etc.).
- Improved VPN performance: Owing to a complete overhaul of the VPN engine design, performance is maximised without customers having to invest another cent in new hardware. Following a software update, a sintegra XS appliance can encrypt at up to 30 Mbps (previously 9 Mbps), for example. Models with Xeon processors from phion appliance partners can even achieve rates of up to 500 Mbps.