Vpn, An Inexpensive Secure Network Setup For Small Business

By Author: Sailesh Kumar
Total Articles: 6
Comment this article

Enterprises, that are successful locally, tend to make their owners think about spreading business to different parts of the world. Thus, globalization of these firms having a computer network of their own requires a secure wide area network (WAN) setup. WAN lets globally distributed employees to access an organization’s network and enabling them to access and distribute the crucial resources, data and info within company offices located at different parts. But establishing a secure WAN requires a huge sum of money, which can be an issue for small or mid level companies. For these types of organizations, virtual private network (VPN) is a viable option.

VPN lets organization to setup a secure WAN using Internet through which users can communicate across physically separate facilities in a secured environment. In earlier times, to setup WAN, the long distance leased were used which was an expensive solution and telephone charges and support costs were added expenditure. But with the introduction of VPN sending data via internet is just like composing business mails or sending sensitive data via public switched ...
... telephone network.

The VPN can connect all organization's offices, people on telephones, employees on move, and even its customers and suppliers anywhere in the world. With the vast availability and reach of web, any one from company can attend a local call or can access a leased line.
In terms of expenditure, the VPN has many benefits like:

No more long distance calls
Compacting the use of equipments
Very less money required for network management

 
Thus, setting a virtual private network is highly beneficial solution for small companies that are looking for data communication needs.
VPN has two basic architectures:

Service provider independent VPN: In this case, client side starts the tunnel from the public network to the central network. User establishes a point-to-point protocol session to a local web provider for internet access. After this user connects across and establishes a tunnel for data transfer. It requires no other special processing.
Service provider dependent VPN: Here, the organization has an agreement with a service provider like an ISP. User dials into a local POP with a PPP client, and the tunnel session is initiated at the POP. The crucial difference is that the client can be any PPP client.

A virtual private network provides a secure communications mechanism for crucial data and significant business details transmitted between two endpoints. The simplified network architecture gives enterprises a highly consistent and a modular connectivity scheme for all remote users, regardless of the location and network need. It helps in greatly reducing the management workloads for network services staff. Using VPN the organizations no longer have to bear the financial burden of acquiring remote access server equipments, and eliminate the risks of appliance disusage.