Novell BorderManager Product Summary
Articles and Tips: article
01 Jul 1997
Offers an introduction to BorderManager and explains how the product delivers centralized management of user level security.
Introduction
The Internet is a fact of business life. Businesses everywhere are extending their corporate networks to the Internet at a rapidly increasing rate. Using the Internet as a business tool can provide competitive advantages such as closer contact with remote employees, customers and vendors. With this new opportunity comes a downside: risks to security, managing user access and decreased performance.
Organizations have spent significant time and effort to build secure, reliable, manageable and efficient corporate networks. Now they're finding they are connecting to a network, the Internet, that is significantly less secure, reliable and manageable. When an organization connects to the Internet, it risks exposing confidential internal information to millions of people beyond the enterprise network's "border." So how can the two be connected to accomplish business while retaining the security, manageability and performance of the corporate network?
Figure 1: Corporate networks and the Internet.
The Novell Solution
There's a new product category emerging in the marketplace, it's called the "Border" or "Border Services." This category describes the space between the private corporate network and the public Internet. In the past, prior to the explosive growth of the Internet, this space was the domain of the Firewall. But as the need to extend the corporate network to the Internet has become reality, Firewalls are not enough. Organizations are realizing they're not just connecting to the Internet, they are extending their corporate network to become a part of the Internet.
Figure 2: "Border Services".
To address the concerns of security, manageability and performance, Novell is introducing Novell BorderManager to the border services category. This new product delivers centralized management of user level security and enhanced performance of the Net (the Corporate Network, Internet and Intranet), making the Internet a viable business tool. Now, IT organizations can address their primary concerns about Internet access because they can quickly connect their users to the Internet and do so in a very manageable way. Plus they ensure their legal departments that the corporation can block inappropriate Internet content.
Novell BorderManager is a unique combination of open technologies and services, shipping as a stand-alone software solution, that works in concert with existing networking products to deliver:
Single point of security management
Internet and intranet Access Management to the user level
Dramatically enhanced Net performance (corporate network, Internet and Intranet)
Reduced cost of operations
Components of this product include:
Firewall which includes the following technologies:
Proxy
IP & IPX Circuit gateway
Packet Filtering
Cache
Routing
DNS/DHCP
VPN
Remote access
IntranetWare Platform OS which includes Novell Directory Services (NDS)
Benefits of Novell BorderManager
Novell BorderManager addresses the primary concerns of IT and Corporate management alike.
Security
This product delivers a security solution that's more comprehensive than simple firewalls alone, enabling organizations to secure the corporate network and to monitor and manage both inbound and outbound access while leveraging the Internet. Plus, Virtual Private Network technology (VPN) allows secure, site-to-site encryption which permits companies to build secure connections through the Internet without the cost of dedicated lines.
Management
The corporate network has become a manageable tool but how can Internet use be managed? Novell BorderManager offers the unique ability to manage Internet access down to the individual user level in a very simple, easy to use manner. Leveraging Novell's Directory Services (NDS), this new product gives IT managers the power to manage the Internet to help increase employee productivity and preserve company reputation.
Novell's security management features give IT managers the ability to manage both intranet and Internet resources as effectively as conventional LAN services, allowing them to stay in control of the network even as it expands to the Internet and evolves into an Intranet.
Performance
Due to the increasing use of images and other large files such as video and audio streams, traffic is growing (and slowing) at a rapid pace and degrading Internet performance. Novell's new product features state-of-the art acceleration technology to offset performance disparities between the Internet and corporate networks. The Proxy caching feature moves frequently accessed Internet information, such as Web pages, from the Internet to the corporate network border, bringing it closer to the users who need it.
The proxy caching feature also improves corporate network or intranet performance by bringing frequently accessed internal data closer to the user. This minimizes traffic on the Internet and the primary Web server, and also reduces the number of node-to-node hops between users and data. Additionally, reliability and employee productivity is enhanced because intelligent caching capabilities allow the data to be scaled and fault tolerant, so users always have access to information.
* Originally published in Novell AppNotes
Disclaimer
The origin of this information may be internal or external to Novell. While Novell makes all reasonable efforts to verify this information, Novell does not make explicit or implied claims to its validity.