Virtual Private Network : Fundamentals and Prerequisites

By: piru

Technologies have changed a lot in the last couple of decades. A virtual private network (VPN) is a set-up for communication infrastructure to offer a protective access to remote office users. A VPN uses a shared public infrastructure with sturdy protective provisions like tunneling. Tunneling is a security prevalence that does not permit communication of data without proper encryption at receiver’s as well as sender’s end. The goal of a VPN is to provide the organization with the same capabilities as internet provides, but at a much lower cost.

A VPN can be remotely accessed network or it can be a point to point access. Fundamental requirements for a Virtual Private Network are:

• Dedicated hardware like VPN concentrator or PIX firewall

• Desktop software for each remote user

• Network Access Server(NAS)

• Policy management center

• Dedicated VPN server for dial up services

VPN offers so many advantages to an organization like it provides security while accessing your critical information, saves money on long distance charges when remote users are out of the dialing area, requires less hardware, e.g., modems used for dialup connections and reduces the number of telephone lines needed for Internet access

In general, VPN is widely used in many companies mainly because of its security feature. Users can easily transmit sensitive information over the network. The entire data send over VPN gets sturdily encrypted before transmission. VPN allows the customer to use their own private IP addressing schemes, and to handle their own routing.

Various VPN protocols are PPTP- Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol, L2F- Layer Two Forwarding Protocol, L2TP - Layer Two Tunneling Protocol etc. VPN is widely used by many big organizations to enhance security of the data. Organizations like Hitachi Software Engineering, IBM, and Cisco etc are using VPN applications. VPN application used by various organizations is:-

• Cisco Systems: VPN 3000/5000/7100 Concentrator Series

• Nortel Network: Contivity, Shasta 5000 product family

• Symantec: Power VPN

• Checkpoint: VPN-1 product Family

• NetScreen: Nets product Family

• SonicWALL: SonicWALL VPN product family

As we can see so many applications and implementation of VPN technology, but still it is facing some problems in getting popularity because of some obstacles on the way to its use. Some major issues are sometimes the connection attempt is rejected when it is supposed to be accepted and vice versa. Other than this it is very difficult to establish a tunnel between two networking locations. It requires a complex structure that can be designed by experts only. If these problems could be overcome then nobody can stop its expansion in the communication business.

Article Source: http://www.bigfreearticles.com

A virtual private network (VPN) is a set-up for communication infrastructure to offer a protective access to remote office users. A VPN uses a shared public infrastructure with sturdy protective provisions like tunneling.

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Tags: computers, tunneling, network access server(nas), pptp- point-to-point tunneling protocol, l2f- layer two forwarding protocol, l2tp - layer two tunneling protocol, hitachi software engineering, ibm, cisco, netscreen, sonicwall

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