The Advantages and Benefits of a VPN

A VPN - Virtual Private Network - is one solution to establishing long-distance and/or secured network connections. VPNs are normally implemented (deployed) by businesses or organisations rather than by individuals, but virtual networks can be reached from inside a home network. Compared to other technologies, VPNs offers several advantages, particularly benefits for wireless local area networking. For an organisation looking to provide a secured network infrastructure for its client base, a VPN offers two main advantages over alternative technologies: cost savings, and network scalability. To the clients accessing these networks, VPNs also bring some benefits of ease of use.

A VPN can save an organisation money in several situations:

• eliminating the need for expensive long-distance leased lines
• reducing long-distance telephone charges
• offloading support costs

VPNs vs leased lines - Organisations historically needed to rent network capacity such as T1 lines to achieve full, secured connectivity between their office locations. With a VPN, you use public network infrastructure including the Internet to make these connections and tap into that virtual network through much cheaper local leased lines or even just broadband connections to a nearby Internet Service Provider (ISP).

Long distance phone charges - A VPN also can replace remote access servers and long-distance dialup network connections commonly used in the past by business travelers needing to access to their company intranet. For example, with an Internet VPN, clients need only connect to the nearest service provider's access point that is usually local.

Support costs - With VPNs, the cost of maintaining servers tends to be less than other approaches because organisations can outsource the needed support from professional third-party service providers. These provides a much lower cost structure through economy of scale by servicing many business clients.

VPN Network Scalability

The cost to an organisation of building a dedicated private network may be reasonable at first but increases exponentially as the organisation grows. A company with two branch offices, for example, can deploy just one dedicated line to connect the two locations, but 4 branch offices require 6 lines to directly connect them to each other, 6 branch offices need 15 lines, and so on.

Internet based VPNs avoid this scalability problem by simply tapping into the the public lines and network capability readily available. Particularly for remote and international locations, an Internet VPN offers superior reach and quality of service.

Using a VPN

To use a VPN, each client must possess the appropriate networking software or hardware support on their local network and computers. When set up properly, VPN solutions are easy to use and sometimes can be made to work automatically as part of network sign on.

VPN technology also works well with WiFi local area networking. Some organisations use VPNs to secure wireless connections to their local access points when working inside the office. These solutions provide strong protection without affecting performance excessively.