NetMotion XE vs Cisco AnyConnect

Key things regarding about Cisco AnyConnect

• This is Cisco's new VPN client - can switch between SSL & IPSec
• It can do persistence, but only for a short amount of time - unlike Mobility XE which can persist across a shift (or even a week)
• It can be configured to run as a process, but it is not easy to do this - unlike Mobility XE
• It is not easy to use, and from a user perspective when the link fails for any length of time, it breaks! (Unlike Mobility XE)
• One needs to install and evaluate both with real end users to appreciate the productivity savings
• Where Cisco has problems - end users see an error message upon connection failure, unlike the seamless transparency of Mobility XE

• Test the solutions side by side - one needs to install and evaluate both with real end users to appreciate the productivity savings. Test the following and see the difference
  • Moving from an internal network to an external network
  • Suspend/Resume in production.
  • Persistence for more than a few minutes
  • Repeated persistence, the more the device has to persist with Cisco the longer it takes to recover.
  • Cisco is complex to set up, switching back to IPSec is not always simple and consumes much more airtime, slowing down applications
  • With Cisco fail over/load balancing is costly
• NetMotion Mobility XE focuses on a more complete solution for all aspects of mobile applications usage. Cisco AnyConnect focuses on just offering a VPN - it offers no analytics to detail mobile usage, Cisco's Network Access Control (NAC) is a completely separate product, and Cisco offer none of the control that is offered by Mobility XE's policy engine
• Effective Secure Mobile working in the Public Sector is about managing costs - end user productivity savings, ease of use, cellular costs, IT costs in ensuring total control over mobility and wireless usage. NetMotion Mobility XE's in-built Analytics, Network Access Control (NAC) and Policy Management enables any public sector organization to prove this to themselves with a no cost evaluation for up to 100 user devices.

Secure Mobile Working enhancements for Cisco AnyConnect users

Our end users see a significant difference in application performance, productivity and ease of use as demonstrated by our no-cost evaluation; I wanted to point to a few areas.

The focus here is on the larger, ongoing expense, namely our cellular air cards and usage. It is NetMotion Mobility XE's solution that works to give the best possible return on that expense, every month. We have 500 air cards at about £40 per month on average - this is about £20,000 each month.

The driver for the comparison of the functionality and differences between AnyConnect and NetMotion is about improving the end users experience with cellular usage and providing IT with the control and visibility into that £20,000 expense every month.

A) Reporting and Analytics on Cellular Usage: Cisco AnyConnect will not provide any details into how well our cellular vendors are doing, what applications our end users access via cellular and how much usage we are consuming via cellular, which users have cellular modems or are using cellular modems. As we have seen - cellular bills can get expensive after the threshold is breached on our "Unlimited" model.  With 500 air cards at about £40 per month we spend about £20,000 each month on cellular access. We need a way to monitor, control and report on how we are managing and bringing down that expense.

B) Application Persistence - An SSL solution will not provide a consistent stable reaction to changes in the network, click on the link below for a typical example of what an end user of Cisco AnyConnect would see

Click Here to see the Cisco error Message

(our users will never get this message from NetMotion Mobility XE, no matter what network interface is used).

At first look persistence seemed to work with AnyConnect, but we then performed this quick test :

1. Start up the cellular Air Card connection using Cisco AnyConnect
2. Launch the SSL VPN
3. Sign onto several applications
4. Disconnect or manually break the connection.
5. Go and get a cup of coffee, or make a phone call, go to a meeting or to go to lunch
6. Come back and see the results

Similar results will occur, when you suspend or hibernate the device, or want to seamlessly move from cellular to Wi-Fi, or to an internal fixed network (like broadband ADSL or Ethernet LAN).