VPN feasibility study using CohesiveFT to Cisco ASA5520

• By Zach Garner
• on 02/26/2014

Recently our team was tasked to create a VPN tunnel to one of our partners networks. Based on prior reviews we selected to use the CohesiveFT VNS3 image from the AWS marketplace to do our tests. Our requirements involved very specific IKE and IPSEC parameters that were not negotiable and thus the native VPN client provided by the Amazon VPC was not an option.
The deployment of the CohesiveFT VNS3 Free Edition was very smooth and we did not encounter any issues getting the manager up and running. We also had no issues deploying the Overlay network and connecting our clients using the clientpak+OpenVPN which really simplifies the sometimes cumbersome process of sharing keys/certs across machines.
Initially we struggled to establish a Tunnel but here is where we learned the true value of the CohesiveFT team and their outstanding support. Within minutes of logging a request for help their team assisted us by provided valuable suggestions that ultimately led us to a resolution. They even logged in to our manager and created a valid tunnel to their network to validate the configuration was ok on our side. In the end the problem turned out to be our partner's endpoint configuration. We are certain that without their assistance a simple issue like this would have taken us days to resolve.

Thanks again to Ryan and his team for all the help!