Chapter 1: Defining the Virtual Private Networks

Chapter 1: Defining the Virtual Private Networks

Overview

Virtual private networks (VPNs) have become a hot issue, the latest industry buzzword, one of the new "killer apps" of the Internet. Everything from extranets to work-group systems to electronic commerce solutions has been hit with the tag "virtual private network." VPNs are being touted as incredible cost savers, infinitely fexible, and infinitely scalable. They can leap the broadest ocean and connect your most peripatetic account executive to the home network from anywhere in the world. Within reason, VPNs really are capable of all of those things. By leveraging the connective power of the Internet or other shared-backbone networking services, they do offer tremendous opportunities for expansive but cost-effective connectivity.

But beware of the hype. VPNs can offer awesome opportunities and benefits, but there are also some hidden costs and dangers, and some of the claims made for VPNs are exaggerations. Furthermore, the lack of standards has resulted in a welter of competing and not always compatible VPN products arriving on the market from firewall, router, and other network hardware vendors, as well as from software developers. Add to that the number of different ways there are to create a VPN, the variety of network services on which they can be created, the number of ways it is claimed they can be used, and the alleged (and sometimes infated) benefits asserted to accrue from VPNs, and the confusion is monumental.

For example, marketers of network services other than the Internet will...

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Virtual Private Networks: Making the Right Connection

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Chapter 1: Defining the Virtual Private Networks

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