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Helping business teams stay connected in response to Coronavirus
We use it internally and we want to help.
As more and more businesses decide to suspend travel and close offices in response to the spread of COVID-19, the global workforce is becoming increasingly distributed (see Smarter with Gartner COVID-19 ). We support these decisions to reduce intersection points and help prevent the spread of the virus. We want to help in our own way to make this transition easier for business teams that don’t already have a secure remote work solution or need an alternative that is easy to setup and works.
Our core business is providing enterprises with cloud edge connectivity and security solutions. This typically doesn’t include remote working solutions like roadwarrior VPN or PeopleVPN (as we call it). That said, we do have some customers who utilize our VNS3 hybrid overlay network appliance to provide their distributed work force with secure connectivity to their data center and cloud based assets. We also have been using VNS3 internally to securely connect and protect our distributed workforce since 2009. Based on these use-cases we think we can help those who don’t have a simple and secure remote work solution.
VNS3 PeopleVPN available today for free for 6 months
We are making a custom, pre-configured version of our VNS3 network controller called PeopleVPN for remote work solutions available for free in both AWS Marketplace and Azure Marketplace.
VNS3 PeopleVPN capabilities include:
- VPN Credentials allowing up to 35 team members to stay connected and protected when working remotely on “unknown” Wi-Fi such as cafes, coffee shops, and other public venues.
- Each remote worker connection is assigned a known IP address, making segmentation for your remote team easy.
- Provide shared access to your cloud resources
- Optional NAT capabilities so all team members, regardless of where they are, will appear to come from a common Internet address, making whitelisting of your remote team much easier.
If you aren’t already using AWS or Azure for your cloud computing needs, take a look at their “free tier” offers to keep the cost of your remote work solution near zero:
While we have no delusions about our impact on this global crisis (we aren’t the Gates Foundation ), we want to do something to help. We believe that everyone has a communal obligation to help in any way. This is our way. We will not make any money from VNS3 PeopleVPN during the COVID-19 outbreak and we are committed to supporting any and all users during this challenging time.
Housekeeping:
- Support: VNS3 PeopleVPN comes with free forum support that is provided on a best effort basis. If you need additional support, we are of course happy to help but a commercial agreement may be needed.
- Pricing: Our first thought was to offer an extended free trial but the Marketplaces limit the free trial periods. We are offering VNS3 PeopleVPN for free in the AWS and Azure Marketplaces until September 15th, 2020. This date can be pushed out depending on the state of the virus response. We will contact all users to provide them with ample time before we either de-list the offering or start charging an hourly premium (current pricing projection is $0.25 per hour premium which is still 6-10x cheaper than cloud provider client VPN alternatives).
- Upgrades: If you have slightly bigger needs, we can accommodate under same terms. Much larger needs will likely warrant a commercial discussion. Contact Us for more information.
- Monitoring/Data Gathering: We don’t monitor or gather metadata on usage. The VNS3 PeopleVPN is an instance that you own, manage, and operate. Tracking user activity is not part of our business model. We take privacy and security very seriously.
Other Organizations looking to help (this list is not exhaustive, and we are happy to add):
- Microsoft is making Teams App available to everyone.
- Google is allowing free access to Enterprise version Hangouts.
- LogMeIn is providing free Emergency Remote Work Kits.
- Cisco is offering the free version of Webex with no time limits.
- Zoom is increasing capacity in anticipation of increased load on it’s free videoconferencing service.
Updated 3/18/2020 to include links to AWS and Azure Marketplace listings.