Virtual Private Network
There are two instances where leased lines may not prove the complete answer to secure, private connections to your office.
- The first is where distance makes leased lines not cost effective.
- The second is where you have staff operating remotely, and they need to directly access facilities on your LAN.
Fortunately it is possible to create private networks through the Internet, using a technology called VPN.
If you need to join two offices together then it’s a simple matter to set up broadband access at both offices, and install a VPN “server” at both sites. These devices will set up a link between the offices, as if you had a leased line. Computers in one office will be able to see the machines in the other office, and use their services. One small issue is that the speed of the VPN is limited to the bandwidth up to the Internet at each site. If you are using standard ADSL, this could be as low as 128Kbps. However there are ways around this limitation.
Connecting from a remote pc to the office is also easy, and provided you have a VPN server on the office LAN, your remote workers simply need to use a VPN client, a piece of software (available from Microsoft®, Apple®, Cisco® etc) and they can access the office network as if they were working inside the office.
