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COPYRIGHT 2005 VNU Business Media Europe
Byline: Alan Stevens.
As promised, the topic for this month's Networks column is the Virtual Private Network (VPN) - the technology used to securely connect remote networks and provide remote Lan access to users over the Internet. I want to cover the various ways of implementing a traditional VPN, the hardware and software that may be required and some of the practicalities involved. But before getting down to the nitty gritty, let's recap a little on the theory.
VPNs explained
VPNs have two main uses. They can be used to link complete networks - often described as site-to-site or branch office deployment - or to connect individual teleworkers and mobile users to a company or home-office Lan. Either way, the Internet is usually used to connect everything, typically via high-bandwidth ADSL or cable services at each end, providing Lan-like performance (see screen 1).
In fact you won't get anything like Lan levels of performance, even with broadband, because most networks now run at 100Mbits/sec or more, while broadband services are limited, in the main, to 2Mbits/sec.
However, you will get a workable connection that can be used for a variety of purposes including sending and receiving email messages, viewing/editing documents and running remote applications. The data passing over the VPN connection can be as secure as on a Lan, if not more so, with all the data first encrypted then encapsulated inside standard TCP/IP packets using special 'tunnelling' protocols.
Down the tunnel
On the face of it, VPN technology should be easy to deploy. In practice, it can be difficult,...
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