Evaluate
Weigh the pros and cons of technologies, products and projects you are considering.
The best VPNs for enterprise use
Source:
Christopher Seero
Designer: Christopher Seero
IT managers choosing a virtual private network (VPN) design are often caught between management dictates and user preferences. This can pose interesting challenges for IT staff.
Upper management's approach to choosing a VPN design often follows along these lines:
- Existing infrastructure dictates the VPN components chosen.
- Upper management determines specific vendor choice or relationship.
- Purchase decisions are based purely on best price, or on the optimal features-to-price tradeoff.
Under this typical VPN design rationale, IT rarely gets the option to pick whatever it wants.
The bottom-up, user-driven approach to choosing a VPN often has these characteristics:
- User platforms dictate VPN protocols and solutions.
- Low-cost or freeware VPN clients drive remaining component choices.
This bottom-up approach creates a free-for-all: Multiple VPNs get used for different user groups or platforms.
To view the four top VPN clients, see the next slide.
Join the conversation
2 comments
You mention in this slide (6), that user platforms dictate VPN protocols. I am curious of what that statement entails. I have resolved a (remote) VPN connectivity issue by manually editing the local IP network from the default 10. gateway address to the more widely adopted 192. range.
Like a light switch, the VPN connection ran straight through successfully to the teleworker's devices once the changes were saved in the router.
Does this mean that the user platform that you are referring to is (in this case) the LAN router? Or did I completely miss what you meant by "VPN Protocols"?
My original thought was that the Client VPN software was what elected the usable protocols but that wasn't what I gathered from your statement.