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IPsec, perhaps the most popular secure VPN technology, has been developed and deployed extensively since the late 90's.
Over past the year or two, MPLS VPNs have started to see significant market growth. SSL (TLS) is also being used for general purpose VPN tunneling. Many market analysts expect to see MPLS and SSL eat into the IPSEC market, but we will probably see all three kinds of VPNs being used for many years to come.
One older VPN technology, PPTP, is now being phased out in favor of alternatives like IPSEC and L2TP over IPSEC. L2TP also replaced another older VPN technology, Cisco's L2F. L2TP over IPSEC is found primarily in newer Windows products, but this combination still has not replaced "vanilla" IPsec for secure remote access.
To learn more about current VPN technologies and the vendors and products that support them today, visit these Web sites:
- IETF Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) Working Group
- IETF IP Security Protocol (IPsec) Working Group
- IETF Transport Layer Security (tls) Working Group
- IETF Layer Two Tunneling Protocol Extensions (l2tpext) Working Group
- VPN Consortium (VPNC) - see Members for vendors/products
This was first published in June 2004