Articles

Virtual VPN Gateway

By Steve Tsai, Managing Editor, Internet Journal

04/17/09

Virtaulization has become a clear trend. Data center server and storage consolidation saves space, energy, and operating cost. In the current economic environment, all these make economic sense.

Whether it is a corporate data center or a MSP's data center, access security must be considered carefully. Take secured remote access for example: due to historic reasons, many corporate data centers or MSPs still have multiple VPN gateways they acquired over the years. Just like server and storage consolidation, VPN gateway can also be virtualized. This has multiple benefits:

First, just like server and storage consolidation, virtual VPN gateway consolidates VPN gateway appliances, therefore, reducing the administrative cost.

Second, virtual VPN gateway actually increases the security in two ways:

a. Each virtual slice of server can have a corresponding virtual slice of VPN gateway.

b. Each VPN tunnel can achieve true end-to-end security.

The reason a virtual VPN gateway can achieve true end-to-end security is that the VPN tunnel from client side to the VPN gateway is encrypted. But from VPN gateway to server is not encrypted. Therefore, inside corporate LAN, that data is not encrypted. Having virtual VPN gateway residing in the same physical cabinet the corresponding virtual server reside will minimize the exposure of data on corporate LAN.

For VPN gateway vendors, a virtual VPN gateway also offers another online marketing tool. Since these virtual VPN gateway software can be downloaded to any computer and turn it into a virtual VPN gateway, prospective customers can download and try it out. In return, vendors can get valuable prospects information for a sales follow-up.

About The Author Steve Tsai is the Managing Editor of the Internet Journal http://www.intnetjournal.com. Internet Journal provides the insights and analysis on Internet marketing, eCommerce, mobile communications, eSecurity, and global e-Business. If you have any comments about Internet Journal, please send email to stt@intnetjournal.com.

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