THE SITUATION
Global travel reservations services want
to save on the cost of upgrading their
networks while at the same time maximizing
security and convenience. With tens of
thousands of travel agencies and airline
sales offices often serviced by a single
network, monthly recurring Frame Relay
transport fees have become a major concern.
In addition, many travel reservation service
clients who spend time away from their
offices need to be able to remotely access
the reservation networks. Moving from a
Frame Relay architecture to an IPSec Virtual
Private Network (VPN) appears to be a solution
that produces the desired cost savings
while maintaining the required network
security and providing remote access.
THE CHALLENGE
- The cost to purchase,
install, and maintain customer premises
equipment (CPE) at thousands of remote
end-user sites during a migration from
Frame Relay to IP needs to be minimized.
- The logistics of coordinating hardware
interoperability for thousands of remote
end-user sites during a migration from
Frame Relay to IP needs to be manageable,
not overwhelming.
- The VPN solution
selected for the upgrade must support
the Airline Link Control (ALC) protocol
upon which the current reservation
systems are based.
- The VPN solution must allow
for a growing number of remote users
to connect to the reservation network
without driving the per user costs
up, particularly through licensing
fees.
- To keep network migration seamless
and simple, the corporate IP numbering
scheme needs to be retained, even if
the addressing plan assigned by the
local Internet Service Provider (ISP)
differs.
THE SOLUTION
Encore’s BANDIT™ IP+Legacy
VPN router meets or exceeds all of the
requirements for modernizing travel reservation
networks.
- The BANDIT™ is a low-cost
solution for migrating networks that
service thousands of remote user sites
to IP-based VPN. Additionally, there
are no extra licensing fees associated
with the number of tunnels used.
- Because
the BANDIT™ can easily achieve interoperability
with other equipment located at travel
reservation host sites, the complexity
and cost of network upgrades can be
kept to a minimum.
- The BANDIT™ supports
a wide variety of legacy protocols,
including ALC, SDLC, X.25, MATIP, async,
and polled async.
- Encore’s value-added Private
Address Translation (Prat) feature
enables the BANDIT™ to maintain the
corporate IP numbering scheme at both
host and remote locations, regardless
of the addressing plan imposed by the
local ISP.
KEY PRODUCT FEATURES
- Proven feature-rich
ELIOS™ operating system
- Economical
solution for providing VPN access
- Compact
design for easy deployment at remote
locations
- Supports legacy data protocols
over IP, such as ALC
- Includes robust
security features, such as Virtual
Private Network (VPN), firewall, and
encryption
- Supports both in-band and out-of-band
remote access for network management
over proven ELIOS™ operating system
- Capable of originating, switching,
multiplexing, and terminating VPN tunnels
on the same platform
- Includes robust security features,
such as standards- based IPSec VPN,
dynamic firewall, Network Address Translation
(NAT) and Private Address Translation
(PrAT)
NETWORK CONFIGURATION
SUMMARY
Encore Networks offers an attractive
value proposition with its versatile
BANDIT™ IP+Legacy solution:
- A smooth
migration strategy from existing transport
methods to less expensive, more scalable
IP-based networks
- Support for legacy
data protocols over IP
- Cost-effective
method of providing a large number
of remote users with secure access
to the travel reservation networks.
- Seamless
interoperability with existing networking
equipment
- Easy installation, operation,
and maintenance
- Powerful ELIOS™ operating
system
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