The MegaPath Connectivity Blog

Snow plow by Petr Kratochvil

There is word of another Winter Storm heading for the middle of the country, with this article saying that all my friends back in Maryland could be looking at another 12″ to 20″ inches of the white stuff.  While weary of all the snow this winter, the wise among them are still working away.  This is because they developed a  business continuity plan, and took advantage of broadband technologies to stay open, and keep their business going, even when their staff can’t get into the office. 

When Mother Nature decides to blanket a few states with snow and ice, the end result can be Snow Days, where liberal leave policies need to go into effect.  But just because you can’t get out of the house doesn’t mean you can’t make use of a Virtual Private Network to get needed work done.  So, as another blizzard seems to be in the making, I would propose that this is a great time to look into teleworking and other business continuity options that your business can implement to keep connected, even when you can’t get the car out of your driveway (unless your car happens to be a snow plow).

How Secure, Reliable SSL VPN Service Works

There’s no denying that this has been the week for iPad news domination.

Good, bad, or indifferent — people are certainly talking about the iPad! I can’t think of any news source I’ve seen this week that didn’t include some mention of Apple’s new mobile device. Fast Company featured a story this week called “Apple iPad Launch by the Numbers” that provides a good glimpse at the growing trends toward relying on mobile devices to tap into whatever information sharing and use, or interactive conversations we want, whenever we want. The flexibility is just so powerful. It’s that same on-the-fly usefulness that applies to people who access and rely on your organization’s network for the applications and information resources that are most critical to their work or business. The trend towards more users connecting into your network using a variety of personally owned or business-provided devices at any time, from anywhere presents complex, multi-layered security issues for the IT leaders tasked with managing these critical capabilities. We definitely know that the trend isn’t going to reverse itself — not hardly. Can IT leaders restrict access to critical network resources to an ‘approved list of devices’?

Remember the old story of the little Dutch boy who poked his finger in the dike to plug a leak? Whew! — then a new one sprung up, and another, and another until he ran out of fingers. How did that work out for him?

A better security method for proactive IT organizations is to embrace the realities of a burgeoning population of mobile wireless users, and engineer your network with practical, scalable means to provide secure remote access to the critical resources your mobile users need. This is moving away from a ‘nice to have’ into a necessity. Managed SSL VPN services are designed to securely enable user access methods by defining control policies and combining them with end point control and policy zones. This type of flexibility defines the type of access environment a user experiences — essentially providing even your most far-flung iPad-toting globetrotters with reliable connectivity and information sharing, while ensuring that your network hums along without compromise. Done right, this SSL VPN-enabled secure connectivity can even be a competitive advantage.

To learn how MegaPath SSL VPN services work, start here.

Let us hear your thoughts and questions!