What is the best VPN Client for Cisco routers

[Niall22]

My company uses a Cisco 2621 router to establish IPSEC tunnels with remote computers so employees can access their work from home. We used SafeNet's SoftRemote VPN client software and never had any problems.

We recently upgraded the client computers from Windows 2000 to Windows XP. We also had to update our version of SoftRemote to version 9 so that it is compatible with Windows XP.

Ever since the upgrades we've had problems with our VPN clients. The connection is dropped occasionally and they have difficulty creating the tunnel to the Cisco router frequently. No changes have been made to the router configuration. To me it seems like it's something to do with Windows XP or version 9 of SoftRemote.

Rather then trying to fight with SafeNet for support we've decided to try another VPN client.

Can anyone tell me what the best (most compatible) VPN client out there for Cisco routers is?

Any info you can provide for me is valuable. I'm having a lot of difficulty finding a decent VPN client. I was going to try the Windows XP built-in IPSEC client but I've heard that it is a royal pain in the butt.

Thanks,


Niall

 

[dopehead]

Well, depending on how your 2621 is configured...i would say Cisco Unity 4.x VPN Client is the best. But it requires you to run a new IOS and have Easy VPN Server Feature configured on the 2621.

Jan

 

[Niall22]

We were hoping to avoid an additional costs besides the VPN client itself. What does Cisco typical charge for IOS upgrades?

There must be lots of companies out there that have made VPN clients that work with IPSEC which would work well with a Cisco router, isn't there?


Niall

 

[BuckWeet]

Well if you have a CCO account you can download the software

all depends if you have enough mem/flash to handle the new load though

 

[Niall22]

We're currently running IOS version 12.1(5)
I think we have 16MB of Flash Memory and 48MB DRAM.

I don't believe we have a CCO account. Unfortunately I just found out that there isn't much money in our budget this year for any upgrades either; we're a non-profit Healthcare organization.

It sounds like most of you guys that use Cisco VPNs are using their client software also. I guess we'll have to put up with our problems until we can find a reasonable solution.

Niall

 

[dopehead]

Too bad, Easy VPN Server was only introduced as late as 12.2(8)T, so that's not an option without upgrading. As far as i remember Major Release changes in an upgrade is not free, so you won't be able to do that without paying.

Also 12.2T requires at least 64Meg memory for your feature set. Sorry buddy.

Jan