Web security vendor SonicWALL has today released the latest version of its secure sockets layer (SSL) virtual private network (VPN) remote access platform, incorporating technology obtained from its Aventail acquisition last June.

SonicWall product manager Chris Witeck said that SonicWALL Aventail 9.0, was not intended to be a large release, but was a means to integrating the new tools, "what we've done here is to port the Aventail technology to our Global Management System (GMS)."

Witeck said that the port would allow IT administrators to do some basic management of Aventail appliances, "You'll be able to open up an Aventail management console within GMS, and do some reporting on authenticated users and some status checking on the Aventail device itself. The integration will improve over time, but this is our first cut.

We've also made several enhancements to our tunneling technology that individually may be small, but added together they give a stronger IPsec replacement use case."

SonicWALL Aventail 9.0 SSL VPN appliances are available now, with the SME-focussed EX-750 model starting at $9,995, and the EX-1600 appliance aimed at larger mid-sized firms starting at $14,995. The enterprise EX-2500 model incorporating high availability and load-balancing support starts at $22,995.

In other news, business comms provider Viatel has announced the addition of web security product Web Control to its growing portfolio of products.

The offering is based on technology from managed security services provider ScanSafe and is designed to protect firms against phishing, malware and other unwanted content. It works by redirecting web traffic to Viatel's own servers and then filtering and blocking any threats, according to the firm.

The service also features the ability to track web usage at a highly granular level and obtain metrics on user behaviour, said Viatel.