VPN
From Bandipedia
Virtual Private Network
A private network that is configured within a public network (a carrier's network or the Internet) in order to take advantage of the economies of scale and management facilities of large networks. VPNs are widely used by enterprises to create wide area networks (WANs) that span large geographic areas, to provide site-to-site connections to branch offices and to allow mobile users to dial up their company LANs.
For years, common carriers have built VPNs that appear as a private national or international network to each customer, but, in fact, are sharing the same physical backbone trunks with many customers. VPNs have been built over X.25, Switched 56, frame relay and ATM technologies as well as IP networks. For added security encryption is often used. See PVC and SVC.
Encrypting data that travels between a remote user and the corporate LAN over the Internet is very popular. It is much more economical than using private, leased lines or making long distance data calls via modem. Today, in fact, many people think that "VPN" and "encrypted connections over the Internet" are synonymous.
Application scenarios for IP VPN's include remote access, intranets and extranets. Remote access VPNs are highly efficient in support of telecommuters, mobile workers and virtual employees. Intranets are used to link branch, regional and coporate offices. Extranets link vendors, affiliates, distributors, agents and strategic partners into the main corporate office with the level of access indicated by username, password and proper authenication.
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