A new version of NetMotion Wireless’ mobile VPN software adds network access control (NAC) and the ability to run real-time software, company officials said.

Mobility XE 8.0 is available today exclusively for Windows devices.  It’s intended for high-end remote applications including enterprise VoIP and uses a proxy design so that networking commands are executed on the server.

“Most of our customers are using more than one mobile network to knit together the coverage they need to keep connected to workers out in the field,” said John Knopf, director of product management.  To help secure those networks, the NAC checks for the presence of antivirus and antispyware software, includes a firewall, ensures security policy compliance and works with third-party applications.

NetMotion has no interest in becoming a pure-play NAC vendor, so the feature in 8.0 was built with a combination of in-house development and licensed technology libraries from Opswat, he said.

For real-time applications, Mobility XE 8.0 has a traffic-shaping feature that allocates bandwidth and prioritizes packets based on each client program’s specific requirements.  The feature also considers variables such as network coverage and whether a client device is roaming.

In addition, the server can lose some packets or even temporarily lose a connection, with the end device still acting like it’s connected because of a packet recovery and reconstruction feature – not unlike how software RAID works in disk storage systems when it reassembles data despite missing pieces, Knopf explained.