A virtual private network (vpn) is the concept of securely tunneling private network traffic over a public network such as the internet.
The most common use of a vpn is when a dedicated private line is cost prohibitive, would have very low utilization or does not offer a measurable benefit to the customer’s specific network.
In a great number of cases a vpn can be utilized in such scenarios thus saving the customer money and providing most if not all of the needed functionality.
Vpn links can span across any type of internet connection as the tunnel is built over the i.p. layer and is independent of the physical and electrical/optical layer. so a set of vpn tunnels can span across a t1/t3 dedicated internet access service, a dsl internet service, a cable internet service or even a dial-up internet connection. all of the sites except the main site need not even have static i.p. addresses.
The only occasional drawbacks of a vpn are that it shares the bandwidth of the internet connection that would be used for all other internet traffic and that the i.p. connection through the vpn tunnel may not be compatible with some network applications that may broadcast in such as manner that usually does not pass through a vpn tunnel. these however are rare situations.
Another consideration when running a vpn tunnel is that each packet has to be encrypted and later decrypted on the remote end thus increasing the cpu requirements of the network routers involved. special consideration has to be given to vpn applications where voip (voice-over-i.p.) will be utilized as voip uses a high number of small packets that can max out the number of packets per second and cpu limits of the routers terminating the vpn tunnels. as long as the vpn is designed with the intended private traffic in mind this is not a problem.
When a vpn tunnel is not appropriate for the private traffic that is needed to flow across it, we recommend subrigo private lines.
In a great number of cases a vpn tunnel provides all of the bandwidth and functionality necessary for the intended network applications to function properly thus providing great value to the customer.
All subrigo vpn solutions are designed and supported by subrigo so you can leave the network issues to us and concentrate on running your business at top pace.