[RayPesek]

Connectra R62 is now available for download from the Software Subscription site. The upgrade path is from R61 to R62. This looks like a good set of improvements. Excerpts from the What's New doc follow.

Ray
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Connectra NGX (R62) can be used as a terminating and management gateway for the Check Point ISCM remote access client for PDAs and SmartPhones.

Connectra's thin clients can now be deployed either as Java applets or ActiveX components. The deployment of these thin clients as ActiveX increases the amount of supported browser environments, and may reduce also the amount of pop-ups the user encounters while connecting to Connectra.

The SSL Network Extender (SNX) window can now be set to be automatically minimized on launch, enabling you to provide a more transparent browsing experience to end-users. Please note that the SNX Auto-minimize feature is supported only by browsers supporting ActiveX.

The new command line based User Monitor enables you to track in real time the amount and identity of users currently logged in to Connectra, enabling you to monitor the load and use of your SSL VPN gateway.

Starting NGX (R62), Connectra supports the Check Point advanced upgrade (export/import) utilities providing both backup capabilities, and migration from one machine to another in case hardware upgrades/changes are needed

The Linux CIFS VFS kernel module deployed with Connectra is enhanced to support file shares in all UTF-8 encoded languages, including Far Eastern language characters. This enables both Far East based companies, as well as enterprises with remote branches in the Far East, to use Connectra's File Shares features.

Connectra NGX (R62) partially supports LDAP V3 which allows full support of UTF-8 usernames and passwords, therefore allowing full integration with LDAP servers containing non-western characters.

Connectra NGX (R62) supports the use of the Connectra Accelerator Card. This PCI-X card speeds up the SSL/TLS public key exchange, and reduces CPU utilization by allowing the offloading of intensive calculations to dedicated hardware. The SSL acceleration card can handle hundreds of new transactions per second, resulting in improvement to your SSL VPN gateway’s performance.

Check Point is constantly working to improve Web applications support by improving Connectra's link translation technology. In NGX (R62), Connectra's link translation engine has enhanced Javascript and ActiveX support, and support for Check Point SmartPortal.

SSL Network Extender (SNX) support for Mac is expanded to include Intel based addition to PowerPC based Mac platforms.

The performance of SSL Network Extender (SNX) has improved dramatically in release. NGX (R62) SNX customers will experience a noticeable improvement as now expect file transfer downloads over SNX to happen in nearly wire speed.