Netspace Communications for design assistance and
equipment to build your VPN. The proliferation of the networked economy has spawned
fundamental change in how corporations conduct business. Corporate staff is no longer
defined by where they do their jobs as much as how well they perform their job functions.
Competitive pressures in many industries have spawned alliances and partnerships among
enterprises, requiring separate corporations to act and function as one when facing
customers. While such developments have increased productivity and profitability for many
corporations, they have also created new demands on the corporate network.
A network focused solely on connecting
fixed corporate sites is no longer feasible for many companies. Remote users, such as
telecommuters or road warriors, and external business partners now require access to
enterprise computing resources. The classic wide-area network must be extended to
accommodate these users. Consequently, many enterprises are considering virtual private
networks (VPNs) to complement their existing classic WAN infrastructure.
There is much hype in the industry
currently concerning VPNs, their functionality, and how they fit in the enterprise network
architecture. Simply defined, a VPN is an enterprise network deployed on a shared
infrastructure employing the same security, management, and throughput policies applied in
a private network. VPNs are an alternative WAN infrastructure that replace or augment
existing private networks that utilize leased-line or enterprise-owned Frame Relay/ATM
networks. VPNs do not inherently change WAN requirements, such as support for multiple
protocols, high reliability, and extensive scalability, but instead meet these
requirements more cost-effectively and with greater flexibility. A VPN can utilize the
most pervasive transport technologies available today: the public Internet, service
provider IP backbones, as well as service provider Frame Relay and ATM networks. The
functionality of a VPN, however, is defined primarily by the equipment deployed at the
edge of the enterprise network and feature integration across the WAN, not by the WAN
transport protocol itself.
VPNs are segmented into three
categories:
- remote access
- intranets,
- extranets.
Remote access VPNs connect telecommuters,
mobile users, or even smaller remote offices with minimal traffic to the enterprise WAN
and corporate computing resources. An intranet VPN connects fixed locations, branch, and
home offices, within an enterprise WAN. An extranet extends limited access of enterprise
computing resources to business partners, such as suppliers or customers, enabling access
to shared information. Each type of VPN has different security and bandwidth management
issues to consider. |
