VPN
- Shared facilities may be cheaper—especially in capital expenditure (CAPEX)—than traditional routed networks over dedicated facilities.
- Can rapidly link enterprise offices, as well as small-and-home-office and mobile workers.
- Allow customization of security and quality of service as needed for specific applications.
- Can scale to meet sudden demands, especially when provider-provisioned on shared infrastructure.
- Can reduce operational expenditure (OPEX) by outsourcing support and facilities.
Distributing VPNs to homes, telecommuters, and small offices may put access to sensitive information in facilities not as well protected as more traditional facilities. VPNs need to be designed and operated under well-thought-out security policies. Organizations using them must have clear security rules supported by top management. When access goes beyond traditional office facilities, where there may be no professional administrators, security must be maintained as transparently as possible to end users.
Some organizations with especially sensitive data, such as health care companies, even arrange for an employee’s home to have two separate WAN connections: one for working on that employer’s sensitive data and one for all other uses. More common is that bringing up the secure VPN cuts off Internet connectivity for any use except secure communications into the enterprise; Internet access is still possible but will go through enterprise access rather than that of the local user.