VPN services in the Market

Based on IPSec protocol this is the earliest IP VPN. There are many services being offered by the ISP providers. These include Site-to-site VPN, VPN on dial up networks, VPN on broadband networks, Voice with VPN and VPN on ISDN services.

These work by creating and maintaining a full mesh of tunnels or virtual circuits, among all sites, belonging to a particular VPN. Providing such connections over the network is an onerous task and reliability, flexibility and scalability is affected. The protocols used may vary

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IPSec
Layer 2 tunneling protocol (L2TP)
Layer 2 forwarding (L2F) protocol
generic routing encapsulation (GRE)
Frame Relay
ATM protocols

Other problems that occur with networks are

Latency

This is the time lag between initiating a request for data and the beginning of the actual data transfer. For a remote access VPN this could be large if the traffic on the network is large. Then the network latency would delay the packet as it is momentarily stored analyzed and forwarded to the next router on the internet.

Packet Loss

Poor connectivity between two end points results in loss of packets of data. This might affect the performance of the VPN. Packet loss may also be due to internal problems of protocol and encryption/decryption standards.

Jitter

Since the routes are variable on the internet the arrival of bits or packets can be variable and not according to order (dependent on timing of the clock cycle). Some network systems are not optimized for jitter. This aspect is crucial for voice and video conferencing as quality if data is decreased.

MPLS_IP_VPN- (Multi protocol Label switching-Internet Protocol- Virtual private Network)

Connectionless VPN's as it is popularly known MPLS VPN is created in Layer 3 of the OSI model. This gives it the value added features of scalability, intranet, extranet, data hosting, network commerce and multimedia data transfers. Privacy and security is provided by limiting the distribution of VPN's routes to routers that are members of the VPN. It can provide classes of service and priorities within VPN's, as well as between VPN's as well.

SSL VPN- (Secure Socket Layer Virtual Private Network)

This is an open source application and has been growing in popularity. Also known as clientless VPN the biggest advantage of SSL VPN is that you do not need a VPN client software. SSL VPN uses the Web browser as the Client application. This makes it more secure because the access is limited to the application and not to the whole LAN or subnet. Digital Certificates are used in the authentication process. The di sadvantages being you cannot use all types of IP. If applications you need to access are not browser based then you will have to use Java or Acitve-X plugins to create browser access to those applications.

Future of VPN

The future of VPN depends mainly on performance for real time services. VPN in financial sector for business like ERP, CRM and VPN in the banking sector need to provide security for all users. IP VPN and the booming network industry have contributed to two categories. One is 'Managed VPN's' where a company gives you Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) gives network connectivity and 24X7 manages the VPN. In other words these companies operate your IP VPN for you. The second category is turnkey products which is either a rent or purchase of equipment from providers of networks. You will have to build your own VPN. They will provide backbone network connectivity and local access facilities.

With an annual projected growth of 20% forecasted for the next 5 years, VPN may be next gene ration WAN.

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