The Marshfield Clinic was an IT security nightmare. With 5,600 employees, 730 roaming physicians, and 39 locations spread out across the northern half of Wisconsin, granting network access to all of the dynamic workers presented a unique set of problems, to say the least.
 
"We had a major challenge," said Carl Christensen, CIO of The Marshfield Clinic. "Our doctors had to move between clinics, go into hospitals and [travel] anywhere within our 39 centers without disrupting applications," and still be able to access patient information and the organization's 2,000 different forms.
 
The constant movement caused the physicians to lose network access each time they hopped between WLAN access points, forcing them to reauthenticate all of their connections and sessions, which wasted valuable time throughout the day. With HIPAA privacy regulations top of mind, Marshfield knew it needed to find a solution that would protect its customers while also easing the pain of network access for physicians.
 
That solution was NetMotion Wireless' mobile virtual private network (VPN).
 
Once the Mobility XE mobile VPN client was installed on the 2,000 Tablets being used by the Marshfield physicians, its session persistence functionality managed the connections, so even if physicians roamed between access points or networks, they did not have to reauthenticate when their devices latched onto a new connection. The feature's timesaving benefits alone will save the clinic millions of dollars. Preventing lawsuits from potentially leaked patient information also provides Marshfield's executives with peace of mind.
 
For most organizations, information--even if it's not the final product--is the prime asset. With more and more organizations becoming aware of the benefits of VPNs, the market raked in $23 billion in 2005 and is expected to swell another 22 percent to reach $29 billion in 2009. Because of the complexity of deploying VPNs and security solutions, the market is very promising, according to Infonetics Research.
 
Even at $23 billion, "It's a very small market right now with only a handful of major players, such as IBM, Nokia, NetMotion Wireless, Columbitech, and Motorola," said Nathan Dyer, enterprise mobility analyst with The Yankee Group. "It's definitely emerging, primarily geared to smart phones and mobile devices like laptops roaming between Wi-Fi hotspots or 3G wireless broadband networks."
 
From a security standpoint, adding mobility greatly increases risk. "It used to be that security was about access to the physical building or the computer room," said John Knopf, director of product management with NetMotion Wireless. "As networks extended out of the office, that obviously changed. Firewalls became more prevalent, and with data going over the airwaves, the potential exposure for sensitive data is much higher."


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