Amaranten today released Amaranten Security Gateway version 8.5, which symbolizes the starting-point for a series of firmware enhancements, each one greatly improving the experienced value of Amaranten products. The 8.5 release specifically focuses on flexible routing and connectivity capabilities, with Virtual Routing and Virtual Systems among the new key features. In addition, the 8.5 release brings L2TP and PPTP Network Server support, dynamic routing using OSPF as well as a highly capable application layer gateway for the H.323 protocol suite.

Amaranten Security Gateway has been much appreciated and awarded for its versatility and performance by press and customers all over the world. With this release the award-winning technology has been refined even further and enables even more advanced network engineering tasks, all in a cost-efficient and easy-to-use manner with your business in mind.

Below is a summary of the most important features and benefits of the new release:

Virtual Routing and Virtual Systems are highly usable in xSP and large enterprise deployments where complex networks often tend to lead to a nightmare in manageability. With the new virtual capabilities of Amaranten Security Gateway, IT security managers get a completely new set of tools for administering the most advanced network structure with a minimum of effort. Virtual Routing enables, for instance, routing of overlapping IP spans, convenient segmentation of security polices as well as seamless transport of datagrams between various interface types. Naturally, each Virtual Router can also maintain its own dynamic routing process. These new powerful features for managing complex scenarios and/or several customers in one Security Gateway instigates a brand new business opportunity for cost-efficient, managed security solutions with an unsurpassed ROI.

Dynamic routing capabilities with OSPF - OSPF is a routing protocol that determines the best path for routing IP traffic over a network. One of its primary uses is in semi-large organizations in need of automatic updates of network topology changes. Starting from release 8.5, Amaranten Security Gateway is able to actively participate in OSPF exchanges. In addition, by using a highly granular dynamic routing ruleset, interactions with the OSPF AS and the gateway's routing tables can be tightly controlled. Multiple OSPF processes may be executed simultaneously, each interacting with different virtual routing tables. Amaranten's implementation of OSPF enables a highly flexible network infrastructure in combination with lowered costs for administration and deployment.

L2TP and PPTP support allows any Amaranten Security Gateway to act as a full-fledged L2TP and PPTP Network Server. In an enterprise environment, this enables secure remote access for roaming clients by using, for instance, the built-in VPN client distributed with the Microsoft Windows operating system. Combine the L2TP and PPTP support with Active Directory authentication, and Amaranten Security Gateway becomes a highly integrated component in any large-scale Windows network.

For service providers, the new L2TP and PPTP Network Server capabilities in combination with the virtual routing support opens up new possibilities for lowering operational costs and creating additional revenue streams. Starting from this release, Amaranten products can now be deployed in core, access and edge networks, thereby enabling additional services while still minimizing the administrative tasks.

Secure VoIP and Multimedia is achieved by enabling the new H.323-aware Application Layer Gateway, which is capable not only of handling peer-to-peer communication, but also of listening in on H.323 gatekeeper communication in order to automatically allow calls to protected hosts. The support for H.323 allows businesses to securely reap the benefits from IP based voice and video communication, thereby adding immense and measurable value.