VPN Appliances
One of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to provide secure access to a network is to purchase an inexpensive VPN appliance and set it up, which will take about an hour of your time. VPN appliances can make secure remote access easy.
When considering the purchase of a VPN appliance, ensure that you have the required complementary hardware in place. First, the VPN appliance must have access to the Internet. Remote users will use the public IP address assigned to the appliance to connect to it. Second, the VPN server must have access to the internal network. It will use internal routing to connect remote users from the Internet to the internal network. Of course, resources in the internal network must be on and available for the VPN users to access them.
Not long ago, VPN appliances were expensive and required client licenses for each computer, in addition to the appliance itself. VPN technology was too expensive for all but the largest companies. But new products make it possible to install a VPN appliance on virtually any size network for budget-minded organizations and SOHO (small office/home office) networks. For example, Buffalo Technology’s 125 High-Speed Mode wireless secure remote gateway is a VPN gateway/firewall router and a wireless access point rolled into one neat package. Another great product is the Linksys WRV54 Wireless-G VPN broadband router, a similar product that provides robust protection for your network. You should know that some VPN appliance products on the market are designed for home installations. Although these products are very easy to install, they allow only a very limited number of accounts and some of them provide relatively slow access.
Configuring a Typical VPN Appliance
Most VPN appliances are designed for simple and quick installations, with plenty of wizards and an automated setup that makes it easy even for non–computer-savvy people. All you typically need to do is to plug the appliance into your network between your Internet service provider (ISP) connection and your internal network. If your network does not have a router or hub, this device can serve that purpose as well. Once you turn on the VPN appliance, you can use any computer on the network to log on to a web page, complete your configuration, and add user access accounts.
VPN appliances are a secure technology, but you need to take basic security measures to preserve the security of your network and remote connections. When you are configuring user account access on the VPN gateway system, for instance, always change the default settings and never use the default passwords. Also, you should give each VPN user an individual access account. In practice, that means if an employee leaves the company, you do not have to change the access passwords for everyone—you just turn off the associated account.
Client-Side Configuration
Once you have configured your appliance, you will need to configure the software on the computers (clients) connected to the network. The systems designed for small installations assume that you will use Microsoft or Mac VPN client software. Some variants of Linux and UNIX may have built-in client VPN software.
Adding a VPN appliance to your office network gives you a remote access solution that lets you and your staff be more productive from anywhere in the world. Not a bad return on a few hundred dollars and an hour of your time.