Sify, Cisco to jointly offer VPN service

BANGALORE: Cisco and Satyam Infoway (Sify) have announced to jointly offer

Cisco's MPLS (Multi Protocol Label Switching) based VPN solutions that are

secure and scalable. This represents next generation Virtual Private Network (VPN)

services that Sify will make available to their enterprise customers.

Sify president (enterprise solutions) Rahul Swarup said, "Business

customers are today increasingly looking at VPNs for reliable enterprise wide

networks, and to reduce total cost of ownership associated with private leased

lines and frame relay services. MPLS-based VPNs will address this problem."

Sify’s chief technology officer Rustom Irani said, "Sify will now be

able to offer better Quality of Service (QoS) on VPNs from all its 52 plus ‘points

of presence’ in the country, matching the capabilities of an ATM/Frame

network. This puts us on par with global players in the West with regard to

technology, cost efficiencies, reliability, security and scalability of VPN

solutions for our enterprise customers."

Some of the significant value-added advantages that Sify can now offer

customers through MPLS-based VPN's are Service Level Agreements (SLAs) to assure

the QoS requested for by their customers. In addition, Sify also offers fully

secure and reliable point-to-point connectivity between separate enterprise

sites. Moreover, the MPLS-based services will be much easier to manage and

provision by a Service Provider.

MPLS VPN technology allows the classification and prioritizing of

applications that are mission critical according to each customer requirement.

Additionally, the end customer need not change their existing IP addresses.

Cisco India vice president (channels and business development) Jangoo Dalal

said, "VPN's can be deployed for a fraction of the cost of a private

network. Cisco's MPLS-based VPN solutions has been able to combine such cost

advantages with comprehensive security, scalability and assured QoS."

An additional feature of MPLS-based VPN's are that the Service Provider core

structure is not revealed so it appears to be as invisible as their Frame Relay

and ATM counterparts - reducing chances of hacking.

They also allow for network-based VPN services that are completely

transparent to any applications, allowing for complete security on any

application the end-consumer might be working on.

This apart, the solution has a mechanism in place to limit the impact of DoS

attacks to the VPN where they originated. To provide the service, SIFY has

implemented a solution based on the existing range of routers from Cisco - Cisco

7500, Cisco 7200 and Cisco 3600. The IOS software of the routers has been

upgraded to support MPLS feature, with hardware upgrades on the existing

core/backbone routers.