Over the next 3 months, ISP-Planet will publish a series of VPN appliance reviews. We'll evaluate 6 turnkey IPsec hardware devices suitable for ISP deployment to broadband-enabled businesses less than 200 employees.

by Lisa Phifer Core Competence, Inc. [May 3, 2001]

In order to narrow the field and focus on products of greatest interest to our readers, ISP-Planet kicked-off this series by issuing a Request For Proposal (RFP). In it, we described IPRVnet, a fictitious regional ISP providing dial, dedicated, and broadband Internet access services to small-to-medium businesses. We envisioned IPRVnet as a typical ISP planning to offer value-added managed security services to its SMB customers. We described representative customer scenarios that IPRVnet wished to satisfy. We enumerated technical, price, and support requirements, flagging a core set as mandatory. And, of course, we asked each vendor to supply ISP customer references.

We based our RFP on our own VPN-related experiences and anecdotal insights offered by our ISP colleagues. To ensure that we'd be comparing apples to apples, we also arbitrarily narrowed our scope. Specifically, we elected to focus on IPsec hardware solutions involving CPE. We could have issued an RFP for software VPNs, central-office VPNs, or hosted VPN services. Any ISP entering the VPN market should consider all of these alternatives—for example, by issuing a broader RFI to gather data before continuing on to the detailed RFP stage.

We issued our VPN RFP to 40 vendors in early April, inviting all to submit a response within three weeks. In early May, ISP-Planet will publish all responses that satisfied the RFP's baseline criteria, in summary form, with editorial commentary.

Products identified in the top six responses will continue on to the next phase of this series—a hands-on evaluation in our test lab. Individual product reviews will be published sequentially over the next three months, culminating with a comparative series closer. Our lab evaluations will focus on the ability of each proposed solution to meet IPRVnet's stated requirements and business objectives. At the conclusion of this series, readers should be able to easily compare these VPN appliances and their suitability for ISP deployment to broadband-enabled small business customers.

To whet your appetites, the complete text of ISP-Planet's VPN RFP appears below. Next week, we will publish vendor responses, our commentary on them, and what we learned about the current state of the VPN market during this RFP process.

IPRVnet RFP: Managed VPNs for Broadband SMBs
IPRVnet is a fictitious regional ISP providing dial (analog, ISDN), dedicated (T1, T3), and broadband (DSL) Internet access services to small-to-medium businesses (SMBs). IPRVnet delivers service in a tri-state greater metropolitan area, operating from one central NOC and several regional facilities.

IPRVnet intends to broaden its existing SMB portfolio by offering value-added managed security services:

• Secure Broadband Internet Access: IPRVnet's existing business-grade DSL Internet access service, with a managed firewall add-on.
• Secure Intranet Service: Site-to-site IPsec tunnels over IPRVnet's regional network, marketed as a premium service to larger SMB accounts.
• Secure Remote Access Service: Client-to-site IPsec tunnels, connecting through IPRVnet or non-IPRVnet POPs, marketed as a premium service to all SMB accounts.
• A La Carte Security Services: Add-on services, such as anti-virus, content scanning, or intrusion detection, sold as incremental features with any IPRVnet managed security service.

All of these security services will be fully managed by IPRVnet. IPRVnet will activate and provision VPN CPE on behalf of its customers, and offer 24/7 monitoring from our NOC.

For the purpose of this RFP, IPRVnet's target market consists of companies with 10-200 employees, 1 to 5 offices with a company headquarters and possibly a few branch offices, and several dozen workers, including teleworkers and travelers, in the field.

IPRVnet plans to up-sell these new services to existing business customers and market bundled premium services to new customers, thereby increasing revenue opportunities and differentiating IPRVnet's service offerings from those of its regional competitors.

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