In January F-Secure antivirus technology was integrated with CyberGuard's firewall/VPN appliances, achieving multilevel security. Pat Wheeler, vice president of business development at CyberGuard said: "We were looking for an anti-virus solution that was proven, and with off-the-shelf interoperability with CyberGuard's own technology. Equally important, we required a partner with a reputation for excellent support."



In March SnapGear released SnapGear PRO+, a VPN Router appliance with integrated V.90 modem for automatic failover for ADSL and Cable-connected customers. Miles Gillham, VP Marketing, said: "This product is a big step forward for broadband users who require a higher level of fault tolerance. Narrowband fallback means no downtime if a carrier experiences ADSL or Cable outages." In December, Snapgear released a powerful new small-medium enterprise range of VPN firewall appliances.




In May Alcatel released OmniAccess 512 with VPN capabilities. Designed to connect branch offices to corporate sites, the Alcatel OmniAccess 512 combines LAN switching, WAN routing, VoIP, firewall, and VPN security offering multi-service access to the enterprise backbone. Joelle Gauthier, Alcatel vice president of network infrastructure marketing said: "Offering secure voice and data applications to the branch office is one of the highest priorities of the network manager today."



In June V-ONE Corporation started offering advanced VPN solutions to users and resellers of satellite IP data communication services through its SmartSat program. SmartSat enables organizations to realize the benefits of satellite communication while overcoming long-standing VPN performance problems associated with satellite circuits.