The new Vyatta VC4 (codename Glendale) GRE and IPIP tunnels + IPsec for advanced VPN site-to-site connections (the standard IPsec Tunnel Mode site-to-site connections are present too).
The adding of advanced VPN site-to-site connections is quite exciting. And with Vyatta, the excitement does not stop here. Either you are a newbie or an experienced user you will probably have the same desire: to build a quick lab to see how the advanced VPN site-to-site connections behave.
Unlike with other vendors, you have access to a community edition of Vyatta, a loaded edition, not just a stripped down to nothing version.
And with Vyatta you have the chance to build your test lab just the way you like it most: in VMware. Since Vyatta runs in VMware, testing was never so easy before (compared with the testing of proprietary routers). And you can't do a real deployment without doing some tests first.
Actually I cannot stop noticing that Vyatta VC4 becomes an attractive study platform too since it incorporates many features (and we have free access to the loaded community edition). Building a hands-on lab for learning and testing was always quite difficult due to cost issues (the networking equipment is quite expensive). And without a hands-on lab you cannot trully learn something and advance your career. If you buy very cheap devices from various places, they may behave random or die too quickly. However, since Vyatta has the ability to run on ordinary hardware and in VMware, complex network topologies can be easily achieved. Also Vyatta Inc. continues to penetrate the market.
So you have a couple of good reasons to start thinking about adding to your lab some Vyatta OFR machines, either physical or virtual ones (in case you already didn't do so).
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