Transparent connections are smart and simple
Thursday, February 11th, 2010 Karen Ambrose Hickey, EditorTravelling again, this time it’s back from Munich after a few days educating and learning at the same time. I demonstrated my favourite Open Mobile client scenario to a room full of people. First, I’m working away whilst plugged in to the wired Ethernet connection for the corporate LAN, as if I’m sitting at my office desk. Then I head off to a meeting room where I know we have an open wireless internet network with web page authentication for guest access, taking my laptop with me.
Open Mobile never fails to impress here. When I’m connected to the LAN as if at my desk, it sits happily in the background having identified our corporate network and knowing it doesn’t need to launch my VPN. Then a pull the Ethernet cable out, I walk on the spot for a couple of seconds, pretending to head for the meeting room, and then open my screen again and hey… Presto! Outlook is still talking to my Exchange server receiving emails, because the Open Mobile Client has authenticated me to the Wi-Fi network and connected me to my VPN without any interaction.
Actually it’s done a lot more than that. The Smart Network Selection feature and Auto Connect functionality has kicked in. It has successfully characterised the networks available to me and connected me to the most suitable one, as defined by my IT admin. It has then determined whether I need a VPN, so it’s got that up and running for me too. I didn’t touch anything!
That is a phenomenal user experience and it’s normally greeted with cries of “encore”, so I repeat the same demo in reverse and then back again. What lets this demo down is the user interface provided by our corporate VPN. This is not a public cheap shot at our IT folks, because I see this replicated at most customers using a VPN. Open Mobile provides a fantastic seamless connection experience under IT admin control and for the most part, unseen.
I’ve never understood why a VPN has a visible client interface except for when it’s asking me to input something (like my password). As an individual, I use my laptop to get things done, like emails and writing documents and presentations. I don’t use it run a VPN. For some non-cloud-based apps, my IT team rightly dictates that I need to use the VPN, which is fine… but do I really need to see it?
Why can’t the VPN just connect me when it needs to without having to be told, and if it needs some extra information from me, it can ask. Microsoft seems to be leading the way with their Direct Access technology, available in Windows 7. I like to call it a “transparent VPN” although their marketing literature may disagree. If I need access to a resource on a secure network, it makes it happen without me having to get involved. This is a fantastic user experience. And, if you overlay Open Mobile with its knowledge and ability to get you on the Internet in the first place (using the best available network in accordance with your IT policies), then, you can truly create that slick connection experience you’ve been looking for.
But, the world is not entirely Windows 7, and we are not all running Windows Server 2008 R2 on the backend or other relevant appliances, so Direct Access is probably not going to be your solution in the short term. I don’t doubt that the clever folks at Cisco, Juniper and others are all busy creating their transparent VPN connection experience too, and I can’t wait to take a look at it (or not as the case may be!).
In the meantime, we continue to put together some clever integrations in Open Mobile that will call your VPN for you when it’s needed, with options for credential population where suitable. The result can be a zero touch transition from private LAN to public network, a great demo for me and an even better daily connection experience for the users of your enterprise mobility service.
Tags: enterprise mobility, Open Mobile Platform
