9.3 Establish the Goals for Your VPN

9.3 Establish the Goals for Your VPN

The goals you spell out for your VPN will depend upon the needs you have identified. The more specific you can be in developing your goals, the better you will be able to define the shape of your VPN. "Saving $250,000 by providing remote access to 2,000 salespeople located in 14 countries by connecting them through the Internet" sounds better than "Saving a lot of money on phone bills."

Ask yourself who will be using the VPN. How many remote access users do we have now that are to be served by the VPN? How many branch offices are there? Will we extend the VPN to our customers and suppliers? Do we need international access and will that be limited to fixed offices or will it include our mobile workforce? Obviously, much of this information will come from the inventory you just completed.

Look for the benefits you can expect to enjoy. How much is your current system costing you, and what is the projected cost for the same services using a VPN? There are worksheets available on some VPN vendor Web sites for just this purpose. Among them are Bay Networks (http://www.baynetworks.com ) and Shiva (http://www.shiva.com/remote/vpnroi ). Be conservative as you fill them in and cautiously skeptical of the numbers generated by any VPN vendor's calculations. The vendors are, after all, selling the technology. Even so, these worksheets should give you some idea of what you can hope for in the...

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