Chapter 10: Administration and Management

Chapter 10: Administration and Management

Overview

Most VPN products come with their own management tools. They are not unlike the tools you'll already have for managing your LAN. You'll need to perform essentially the same tasks for a VPN that you do for any network. Obviously user authentication and access control are major concerns. You'll want to be able to track traffic and log any problems that arise so they can be located and remedied. You'll have to add or remove nodes and user accounts and manage files and servers. But managing a VPN is not exactly like managing a LAN or even a WAN. The nature and architecture of VPNs stretches some aspects far beyond the range found in the average LAN.

Security is one aspect of particular importance. Also, when you implement the VPN there is the sudden increase in the number of users you are responsible for. Instead of making sure just Joe down the hall, whom you have coffee with every morning, has access, you have to arrange access for a hundred or a thousand others across the country whom you've never met. Another management item to attend to is somehow guaranteeing that the VPN doesn't let you down?that the system stays up and that data moves smoothly through it. Since the major link that creates your VPN (the public backbone) is not under your direct control, there is only so much you can do about this, and one option may not even be available...

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Virtual Private Networks: Making the Right Connection

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Chapter 10: Administration and Management

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