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Great software: Check Point vs. Info Express

I recently finished setting up two competing VPN products: Check Point’s VPN-1 with SecureClient, and Info Express’s VTCP/Secure. I’d like to share my views on both these products.

Check Point’s VPN-1

Here are the main points I noticed when setting up this product:

1. Configuration is incredibly complicated. The number of steps you have to take to configure the simplest server that caters to a single user is staggering. It was complicated even after I had the help of a colleague who is familiar with the product.
2. The VPN protocol uses UDP, which doesn’t traverse the NAT implementation I was using on the client (and I’m guessing a good many other implementations as well)
3. The client resides at such a low position in the network stack that it’s neigh impossible to debug
4. The client can’t connect to the server if they are on the same network (!)

Overall, we spent over 5 man-days getting this solution to work correctly on the four different usage scenarios we needed.

InfoExpress’s VTCP/Secure

At first sight, the InfoExpress product looks kind of pathetic. It has a vintage installation procedure and GUI, dated circa 1990 (think windows 3.11). Here are the main attributes of this product:

1. There’s a 40-page PDF manual that comes with the server and covers everything you need to know
2. Setting up a new server takes about two minutes, following a list of instructions at the top of the manual
3. The configuration interface is text-based and incredibly simple. It’s very hard to get lost and not find what you’re looking for.
4. The protocol uses TCP, which can go across any NAT implementation without a hitch
5. Complex issues such as address allocation are handled in an elegant, intuitive way

Overall, I spent about 4 hours setting everything up and testing it in those same four scenarios. This included installing and configuring a brand new Linux machine for the server.

To conclude, I don’t know how these products scale, and whether or not one supports a lot more features than the other. What I do know is that VTCP is great software. And I’m willing to bet that an overwhelming majority of IT admins would find this product easy to use and sufficient for their purposes.