"We concentrated on three of the top remote access vendors and evaluated them internally first and then went to each vendor and evaluated the kit on their site. We took an evaluation criteria based on our business requirements and asked questions such as availability, scalability and flexibility."

The department purchased the EX-1500 VPN appliance from Aventail with a 100-user licence. They anticipate rolling out more than 2000 licences over the next two years.

Jose said the Aventail solution equalled competitor offerings, but was chosen because it met specific business requirements. The main reason for Aventail's selection was the end-point security checking feature.

What highlighted the need for secured communications and complete remote access was a recent sojourn fighting fires in Indonesia. Jose said members of the QLD Emergency Services department had to dispatch officers for reconnaissance and strategic support. Issues with differing protocols led him to feel that existing communications could have been better.

"Our existing communications could have worked better and with the appropriate technology different communications protocols would have been no problem at all - the problem was getting a line out as we only had a satellite phone, not a secured line. We are looking at future technologies to help us move around."