Knowledgebase
|
What is a Virtual Private Network?
Posted by admin on 11 September 2009 11:38 PM
|
|
|
A virtual private network is the extension of a private network that encompasses links across shared or public networks like the Internet. With a VPN, you can send data between two computers across a shared or public network in a manner that emulates a point-to-point private link. Virtual private networking is the act of creating and configuring a virtual private network. To emulate a point-to-point link, data is encapsulated, or wrapped, with a header that provides routing information, which allows the data to traverse the shared or public network to reach its endpoint. To emulate a private link, the data is encrypted for confidentiality. Packets that are intercepted on the shared or public network are indecipherable without the encryption keys. The link in which the private data is encapsulated and encrypted is a VPN connection. There are two key VPN scenarios—remote access and site-to-site. In remote access, the communications are encrypted between a remote computer (the VPN client) and the remote access VPN gateway (the VPN server) to which it connects. In site-to-site (also known as router-to-router), the communications are encrypted between two routers (VPN gateways) that link two sites. | |
 (417 vote(s)) Helpful Not helpful |
Comments (0)