Chapter 2: How to Use a VPN

Chapter 2: How to Use a VPN

Overview

While it is only since late 1997 or early 1998 that the term VPN has gained widespread use and begun to attract significant attention, VPNs have been in use since the mid 1990s. This chapter gives us some examples to look at, so we can see how VPNs have been put to use and some of the issues being confronted in the industry. We'll see them being used by a variety of organizations, ranging from health care systems to restaurant franchises to entire industries. With regard to the latter, the adoption of VPN technology by industry coalitions is providing a badly needed standardization that will benefit the entire VPN industry.

In some of the examples cited here, the organizations requested anonymity, a refection of security concerns. For that reason we do not identify them other than by their field of business.

2.1 The VPN for Remote Access

As we've already seen, it is as remote access servers that VPNs show the greatest potential monetary savings. By replacing the public telephone network with the more efficient and less expensive Internet for remote access, VPNs can produce impressive reductions in communications expenses, up to 60% or more by some estimates. Not unexpectedly, the potential is there, too, for faster data transfers than are possible using long-distance telephone connections (particularly international connections). So it stands to reason that there are already many examples of VPNs being used to give road warriors network access.

However, we're...

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Virtual Private Networks: Making the Right Connection

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Chapter 2: How to Use a VPN

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