BURLINGTON, MASS. (06/29/2000) - Genuity Inc., formerly GTE Internetworking, is trying to make it easier for businesses to buy managed security services through the release of new service bundles.
The ISP is introducing VPN Advantage for Nortel Networks Corp. Contivity Service, which supports dial-up users with some of the highest levels of security available. Although Genuity previously offered Nortel's products to support VPN service customers, this is the first time the ISP has bundled dial-up, dedicated and X.509 digital certificate support.
The bundle includes a Nortel Contivity VPN gateway, Cisco Systems Inc. router, 24-7 monitoring, and maintenance and client software for each dial-up user.
Customers can access their corporate VPN through local dial-up points-of-presence (POP) sites from around the world. Genuity has POPs in 24 countries and offers users local-number access through a relationship with I-pass, a global roaming service provider.
Genuity is offering two service-level agreements (SLA). The first SLA guarantees 97 percent of all dial-in attempts will go through without a busy signal, and the second guarantees 99 percent of users will connect at 45.6K-bps or higher.
The ISP is also in the process of changing its SLA credit system from reactive to proactive. Today, customers have to request a credit if they believe Genuity hasn't lived up to its guarantee. In the third quarter, Genuity is expected to automatically credit all customers if it does not meet its SLAs, says Tim Bowen, a Genuity marketing manager.
The service bundle is available now for US$20 per month, per user.
Genuity is also offering SitePatrol managed firewall customers new service options, including hot standby and firewall server clustering options.
Genuity is using StoneBeat high-availability software on SitePatrol firewall servers so each firewall can share the same IP address, Bowen says. If one server fails, Genuity can bring the other online in a matter of seconds instead of minutes, because the servers share the same IPaddress, he says. SitePatrol customers can use two to 16 firewall servers in a clustered group.
SitePatrol with hot standby and high-availability service options costs $7,900 to $12,700 per month.
Genuity: www.genuity.com.