Managed services provider MegaPath today announced it is extending its suite of security services to include Juniper’s Secure Access SSL VPN product family for Secure Socket Layer-based remote access.

MegaPath has been offering SSL as a managed security option for some time now, following its 2005 acquisition of Aventail’s Managed SSL VPN Service unit (while it was known as Netifice), but some of its enterprise customers have specifically asked for the Juniper SSL product, said Gregory Davis, vice president of product marketing for MegaPath, which is the name Netifice chose to use after it acquired MegaPath.

“This basically is an augmenter or add-on to the offering we’ve had for some time,” he said. “In the past, we were only offering it on the Aventail platform, now we are able to offer it using the Juniper SSL appliances. We had customers that were requesting it.”

The SSL services are in addition to MegaPath’s other security offerings, which include its Secure Connect managed security services for small-to-midsized businesses as well as its SSL and a software-based security suite that includes anti-virus, anti-spam, Web filtering and other capabilities.

The new offering will use Juniper’s Networks Secure Access family of products for secure extranet, intranet and LAN access from a single platform, to serve both SMB and enterprise customers.

The advantage of SSL-based security is that it doesn’t require a software client on the end-user computer, making it well-suited for employees who aren’t regularly traveling or telecommuting, or for business partners and suppliers, Davis said.

“It’s probably the fastest growing type of remote-access VPNs [virtual private networks],” he said. “Originally, all VPNs were IP SEC. SSL was developed for e-commerce. It is encrypting your session from your Windows browser to the server of an e-commerce company. It uses your browser to set up the encryption so there is no need for client software. You can pop up your Web browser, type in user name and password and you are connected via a tunnel.”

The other advantage to SSL is that it allows a company to establish rules for who can see what content or systems, “based on what machine they are coming in on and their credentials,” Davis said. “You can get very granular in your access, which is important for Sarbannes-Oxley compliance and other rules like HIPAA (privacy laws), which say you can only allow access to certain people and under certain conditions.”