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Remote User Access Over the InternetVPNs provide remote access to corporate resources over the public Internet, while maintaining privacy of information. Figure 1 shows a VPN used to connect a remote user to a corporate intranet.
Figure
1 A Virtual Private Network (VPN) connects the components of one network over another network. VPNs accomplish this by allowing the user to tunnel through the Internet or another public network in a manner that provides the same security and features formerly available only in private networks (see Figure 2).
VPNs allow users working at home or on the road to connect in a secure fashion to a remote corporate server using the routing infrastructure provided by a public internetwork (such as the Internet). From the user’s perspective, the VPN is a point-to-point connection between the user’s computer and a corporate server. The nature of the intermediate internetwork is irrelevant to the user because it appears as if the data is being sent over a dedicated private link. VPN technology also allows a corporation to connect to branch offices or to other companies over a public internetwork (such as the Internet), while maintaining secure communications. The VPN connection across the Internet logically operates as a Wide Area Network (WAN) link between the sites. In both of these cases, the secure connection across the internetwork appears to the user as a private network communication—despite the fact that this communication occurs over a public internetwork—hence the name Virtual Private Network.
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