Do you need a Virtual Private Network (VPN)?

If you answer yes to any of the following questions, read-on below to find out more about how a Virtual Private Network might help you.

  • Does your business trade over multiple sites?
  • Do any of those sites need to access resources at other sites?
  • Do you need to transmit sensitive data across the internet?
  • Do you need to allow remote workers access to your internal network

 

What is a Virtual Private Network (VPN)?

A Virtual Private Network or VPN for short is a way that allows you to connect multiple premises or sites together securely so they can share resources like file servers, intranets and other valuable internal resources. A VPN is ideal for businesses that span across multiple premises, whether that be across town, interstate or internationally. A VPN creates secure virtual links between your sites to bring all the sites together to look like one large network while allowing each site to access each others network resources.

In addition to connecting all of your sites together to look like one network, Virtual Private Networks can be made to be highly secure, encrypting the data that passes between your sites and premises to ensure your data and your customer’s data is safely transmitted.

You also have the option of allowing remote workers or employees who are on the road access to your Virtual Private Network so they too can access to resources within your network?

In addition to physical sites, you can also allow any computer, laptop or smartphone access to your Virtual Private Network. This is done securely so only authorised people can gain access, however, it makes accessing resources on your network much easier as if your employees were in the office.

Images of different types of VPN set-ups:

Site to Site Virtual Private Network
Site to Site VPN

Data Centre to Multi-Site Virtual Private Network
Data Centre to Multi-Site VPN

 

Is a VPN secure?

The short answer is yes, however, there are varying degrees of security with different types of VPN implementations. The strength of the security and encryption you require will often determine what combination of hardware and software is used to deliver the right solution.

For example, if you have remote workers connecting from public Wi-Fi hotspots, you’ll absolutely want strong security and encryption to ensure your data is protected.

Another example might be that you have a government contract which stipulates the type of encryption to be used when transferring data between networks.

 

Is a VPN expensive?

This is one of those ‘how long is a piece of string’ questions – each VPN we deploy differs. Some of the questions we’ll ask you to help determine the cost of a VPN are:

  • How many sites do you need to connect together?
  • Do you have appropriate business internet connections at each site?
  • Do you need redundancy built-in to the solution?
  • Do you have remote workers that need access to the VPN
  • Do you have resources located in a Data Centre you also need to be connected to the VPN?

There are lots of questions to consider and quite a few moving parts. A VPN that is correctly scoped and set-up right the first time will bring a business a wealth of operational advantage.

 

Where do I start with a VPN?

As you can see from above, there is no one-size-fits-all approach here. We recommend having a no-obligation discussion with our Australian based staff where we’ll listen to your requirements and help scope something out that meets your business and budget needs. Simply fill out the form on the right or give us a call on 1300 736 048