Juniper Networks, Inc.

Christopher N Thomas

Theron D Tock

Shekhar Kshirsagar

Sriram Ramachandran

James P Wood

Vadim Egorov

Vamsi K Anne

David W Young

Adaptive failover occurs between a Layer Three (L3) based network tunnel and a Layer Four (L4) based network tunnel. An example of a L4 based network tunnel is a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) tunnel and an example of a L3 based network tunnel is an Internet Protocol Security (IPSec) tunnel. SSL tunnels work through most firewalls and proxies, but may introduce latency and other performance problems. IPSec tunnels provide a more efficient performance, but may not work through some firewalls and proxies. The techniques include dynamically selecting a tunneling protocol in order to achieve a more efficient network tunnel performance when possible while maintaining consistent L3 connectivity from a variety of remote network environments.

Adaptive transition between layer three and layer four network tunnels

A network system includes an access control device and a client device. The access control device provides access to an enterprise network using a virtual private network (VPN) and provides a software update package to the client device. The client device includes an operating system that maintains a user context for a user having restricted privileges and a system context having elevated privileges. The client device further includes a user-level setup module, a system-level installation service and a user-level installation service. The setup module, system-level installation service and the user-level installation service interact to provide on-demand advertisement and installation of authorized software update packages on computing devices when needed by the user without requiring action by an administrator.

On-demand advertising of software packages

Techniques are described for providing secure communication of network traffic from specific applications operating on a client device to a server device using a network-layer virtual private network (VPN). For example, a module on a client device may intercept network traffic from an application executing on the client device. The module may then determine whether to send the application-layer data through a network-layer VPN tunnel from the client device to a gateway device. This network-layer VPN tunnel may be defined by a network address of a physical adapter of the client device and a network address of the VPN gateway. In other words, there may be no need for the interposition of a VPN proxy on the client device. The module makes this determination on an application-by-application basis. The client device then forwards the application-layer data through the VPN tunnel based on the determination.

Application-specific network-layer virtual private network connections

Improved approaches for providing secure access to resources maintained on private networks are disclosed. The secure access can be provided through a public network using client software of client-server software and/or with file system software. Multiple remote users are able to gain restricted and controlled access to at least portions of a private network through a common access point, such as an intermediate server of the remote network.

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Watsonville, CA, United States of America

Christopher N Thomas