SAN JOSE, Calif. - January 27, 1997 - Cisco Systems, Inc. today announced CompuServe Network Services, one of the largest network integrators, will offer secure private networking services to its dial-up customers based on Layer 2 Forwarding (L2F), available in Cisco IOS(TM) software.
Virtual private dial-up networking offers security and scalability benefits associated with a private network. Significant cost savings, inherent when operating these private networks over shared public infrastructures such as the Internet or a service provider backbone, can be passed on to CompuServe Network Services customers.
"With the explosive growth of corporate dial-up access, virtual private dial-up network technology enables us to offer our customers the benefits of private networking infrastructure where they control their own network security and address management policy," said Peter Van Camp, executive vice president of CompuServe Network Services. "Cisco and CompuServe Network Services are working together to establish open standards-based tunneling. In addition, we are working with Cisco to provide a tunneling solution that will integrate with a Microsoft NT server. These tunneling strategies provide a real advantage for customers needing an end-to-end solution."
"L2F provides customers such as CompuServe Network Services with an industry leading virtual private dial-up network solution," said Stephen DeWitt, vice president of Cisco IOS software and network management marketing. "Our ability to provide a smooth migration path to the forthcoming L2TP industry standard was an important factor in CompuServe Network Services' decision to deploy L2F. Future Cisco product will have the ability to transparently create or detect either L2F or L2TP tunnels, thereby ensuring backward compatibility."
Layer 2 tunneling protocols provide dial-up customers with a broad range of benefits, as session parameters are negotiated by the client with its own corporate gateway. Traditional mechanisms such as authorization, address negotiation, protocol access, accounting and filtering are all controlled by the customer's own network. Existing technologies, such as encryption, will run transparently end-to-end over layer 2 tunnels ensuring privacy and confidentiality. Future technologies, such as security standards from the IETF's IPsec working group, will also work transparently in a layer 2 environment.
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