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Wireguard is quickly becoming one of the most popular Virtual Private Network protocols, and it's ideal for the modern workplace, where a hybrid workforce needs fast and secure access not only to the office network, but also to the various cloud resources that comprise a modern organization's digital footprint.

However, deploying, configuring and maintaining a Wireguard network from the ground up can be a huge undertaking. IT administrators often complain that they have to spend their valuable time and resources on manually editing configuration files, generating keys, assigning network addresses and keeping a spreadsheet with client connection information up-to-date.

We've been there too when the big transition to full-time remote work caught us unprepared last summer and we were scrambling to keep everyone connected to our "virtual office" in the cloud. After evaluating different off-the-shelf VPN solutions, Wireguard quickly came out on top due to it's incredible speed, modern cryptographic algorithms, and fantastic quality-of-life features such as always-on and one-click-connectivity. Yet setting up and maintaining a Wireguard deployment even for a small remote team was much harder than it was supposed to be, due to the lack of tooling, integration with our already existing IT infrastructure (like our Active Directory in the cloud) and little administrative power beyond a crude command-line interface.

Today, we are excited to announce that KUY.io Konnect VPN Access Server is now in General Availability. KUY.io Konnect is a cloud-first, Virtual Private Network access server, offering IT administrators a quick and easy way of deploying and operating Wireguard-based Virtual Private Networks on-premise and in the cloud.

KUY.io Konnect greatly simplifies the administration of your Wireguard-based Virtual Private Network: it handles the provisioning of client configuration profiles and cryptographic keys, the management of IP address leases in your VPN subnets, and offers end-users and easy-to-use self-service portal with clear instructions on how to setup their devices. This allows you to offload the complex and time consuming - yet critical - VPN administration tasks and empowers you to focus on what really matters: keeping your remote workforce productive.

Benefits of KUY.io Konnect VPN Access Server

  • Easy set up and maintenance: KUY.io Konnect creates a full Virtual Private Network setup for you. Simply follow the configuration wizard on first start and choose your deployment options (e.g., public hostname or address of your VPN server, connection ports, IP address ranges). Follow a few simple steps and your VPN server will be up and running in a matter of minutes. You can even spin up VPN servers in most major cloud providers such as AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and DigitalOcean.
  • Secure by default: Since network access is critical, it also needs to be secure. Wireguard encrypts data in transit with the strongest cryptographic algorithms available to us today. When you create a new connection, KUY.io Konnect automatically provisions strong cryptographic keys that are unique to that connection. You can also restrict access to resources within and across your VPN network to implement your organization's network security policies with ease.
  • Integrates with your existing user directories: Chances are that you are already managing your users centrally, either in an on-premise LDAP solution, or in the cloud. KUY.io Konnect can be configured to synchronize with your existing directory through the LDAPs protocol and automatically provision resources for VPN access.
  • Scales to hundreds of devices: With the ebb-and-flow of people coming to the office on one day, and working remotely on another, it is important to have a VPN network that can keep up with increased demand when it matters. KUY.io Konnect can support hundreds of devices simultaneously due to the novel architecture of the Wireguard protocol.
  • Built for the Cloud: No need to rent or deploy costly physical VPN/Firewall gateway hardware. KUY.io Konnect is distributed as a containerized software solution with the entire application stack and dependencies packaged together in a single Docker container. This allows you to directly deploy KUY.io Konnect to any server, virtual machine, and even container clusters such as Kubernetes or OpenShift with minimal host dependencies.
  • Easy to Use: Administrators have access to a full-featured administrative GUI distributed as a web-application, and compatible with all modern browsers, tablets and mobile devices. The admin portal allows you to see device connection status, data consumption metrics, and gives you direct access to configuring all aspects of the VPN server and the connection clients. Users have access to a self-service portal with information about their devices and easy to follow setup instructions for all major operating systems, and platforms, so they are up and running fast with minimal IT intervention.

The need for Modern VPN Solutions

As the world-wide pandemic continues to shift work habits, 82% of businesses plan to enable their employees to work both remotely and in the office at least partially. Remote employees need access to all the same digital resources as on-premises employees, which requires secure connections to and from corporate networks, cloud services and applications.

Organizations must keep critical assets secure, control and monitor sensitive information and privileged access, and manage remote worker cybersecurity – all while ensuring that employees are productive and efficient. From an infrastructure standpoint, IT pros need the ability to easily and securely access work-from-home employees’ devices – ideally from a single dashboard. Unfortunately, smaller companies rarely have the IT talent, tools or budgets to prevent many forms of cyberattacks – however, with the right tools in place, IT professionals can successfully navigate these challenges without breaking the bank.

With this in mind, we introduce KUY.io Konnect to empower hybrid organizations of all sizes so they can securely make digital resources and cloud services and applications available to remote employees. Since KUY.io Konnect can be deployed both on-premise and in the cloud it's easy to secure your entire digital footprint with one solution. Employees love KUY.io Konnect since it is easy to use - a single click connects them to the office network - incredibly fast, and stays connected even when your device goes to sleep or switches networks. Security that doesn't impact productivity.

How KUY.io Konnect works

KUY.io Konnect provides you with various deployment and configuration options to build your Virtual Private Network architecture, such as:

  • Peer-To-Server: Your traditional VPN architecture where a number of client devices (remote worker laptops or mobile devices) connect to a central VPN server to gain secure access to a remote network.
  • Peer-To-Peer: Ideal for securely connecting multiple networks, such as an on-premise network and a private cloud network, or multiple branch office networks.

No matter what compute option you choose to build your IT infrastructure, you can easily deploy KUY.io Konnect to it. KUY.io Konnect is offered as a containerized application stack, as well as pre-built images for all major cloud providers. To run the container application stack, all you require is a Linux host with Docker and recent Linux kernel supporting the Wireguard network protocol.

Simple, predictable pricing

We are huge fans on simple and predictable pricing without hidden costs or paywalls to unlock extra features, allowing you to control costs and prevent any surprise bills. KUY.io Konnect is offered in a free license for evaluation and personal use, as well as a Pro license for production deployments and commercial use. Each client device connecting to a server with a Konnect Pro license costs just $3/month, billed annually. Click here for more information.

Cloud Provider availability

KUY.io Konnect cloud images are currently available for the following cloud providers:

  • Digital Ocean (Marketplace)
  • Google Cloud

We will be making cloud images for KUY.io Konnect VPN Access Server available in other cloud providers soon. Please check out the release notes for the most up to date information on cloud provider availability.

If you'd like to have a conversation about KUY.io or deploying KUY.io Konnect in your business, please feel free to contact our sales team.

👋 Cheers,

Nicolas Bettenburg - CEO and Founder of KUY.io