Many businesses are now facing significant challenges as a consequence of the ongoing latest variant of the Covid-19 outbreak. The majority of IT departments are having to improvise to ensure that staff can continue working while any potential outage lasts.
There may be a variety of difficulties if your firm is closed for holidays. When things go wrong, remote access solutions and free remote desktop software become essential to keep business operations running.
Many organizations may have already implemented using a secured virtual environment in which the router is VPN enabled, many businesses are unsure whether to embrace a full or partial remote-working model, and they're concerned about the needed changes.
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is one of the most important technologies for allowing secure remote access to your company's internal network. When only one or two persons in a small office need to access one or two office computers from home, remote desktop software may be more advantageous.
What is a Virtual Private Network (VPN)
A virtual private network (VPN) creates a secure virtual tunnel to your office network over the public internet. It ensures data privacy by encapsulating and encrypting data as it travels across the open internet.
You may compare VPN tunneling to moving actual cash via an armored van across public roads from one point to another. In this case, the money is your personal data, the unsecured public network is the public road, and the armored vehicle is the VPN tunnel.
Encapsulation camouflages the van, making it difficult to identify as a cash transport, while encryption keeps anyone from getting access to the money inside.
Setting up a secure VPN connection is straightforward. The user first connects to the internet and then opens the locally installed VPN client software or visits a web browser to the VPN server in the office.
Your access level permission determines if you will be granted access to internal company resources via the encrypted tunnel. If VPN companies want to get paid by their clients for services rendered, then companies should generate an invoice.
Here are several options for setting up an office VPN so that your staff can access corporate resources from anywhere in the world. We'll get into each of these in further depth below.
- NordLayer
- Remote access VPN
- SD-WAN VPN
- Cloud VPN
NordLayer
NordLayer is an adaptive network access security solution for modern businesses. It is developed by the world’s most trusted cybersecurity brand, Nord Security.
NordLayer helps organizations of all sizes to fulfill scaling and integration challenges when building a modern secure remote access solution.
NordLayer is far simpler to set up and provides an easy way to organize, manage and protect access to your business networks.
If we talk about the billing. The Billing is centralized, conveniently. No matter how many users you have, you'll only get one invoice. Licenses are transferrable, too, so if one employee leaves, you can switch the license to someone else in seconds.
How to set up the Smart Remote Access feature
To avail this feature you have to be on the same network. The smart remote access feature gives you the ability to connect endpoint to endpoint. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to set up the smart remote access feature:
- First of all, you should have a gateway that is connected to a single dedicated server
- Go to Settings in the Control Panel via NordLayer's website
- Locate Smart remote access and click on Add gateway
- Click enable and then confirm
Note: This will restart the server.
Remote Access VPN
Personal computers or cell phones can connect to an organization's internal network from anywhere in the globe using a remote-access VPN.
Users have direct access to the business computers as if they were connected directly to the network. IPSec and SSL are two of the most popular protocols used in remote-access VPNs.
IPsec is the most popular VPN technology. It may be used to protect communication between a company's network and a host computer at home because it protects information at the IP level layer, which is Layer 3.
To establish a connection, the client software must be installed on the host computer. IPsec was created with data integrity and confidentiality in mind, and it includes high-level security features.
SSL VPNs' greatest advantage is that it is platform-independent. You don't have to rely on a third-party VPN client to establish connections. You can access resources remotely using any web browser, regardless of the operating system underneath.
To set up an office VPN to enable working from home, you'll need a hardware device called a VPN Gateway in your office.
The most well-known security hardware and software are from Cisco (Firepower), Check Point, Fortinet, Juniper Networks, Palo Alto Networks, Sophos XG Firewall for SSL VPN and IPsec VPN, and WatchGuard.
While setting up the VPN, you will most likely need the assistance of a Network Engineer or a third-party service provider, but some devices have GUIs or a wizard-style setup procedure.
The initial investment required to establish a remote access VPN is low, and they may rapidly be expanded as the business grows.
But this is not the case. If a VPN service provider is utilized, all of that changes. Businesses may now feel more at ease with remote-access VPNs and allowing their employees to work from home since they are cost-effective and secure.
SD-WAN VPN
For organizations that host both on-premises and cloud-based programs, such as contact center software, Remote Access VPN, and Cloud VPN are insufficient to provide consistent end-to-end data security. Software-Defined SD-WAN technology is one option that can meet this unique corporate demand.
SD-WAN is a virtual wide area network architecture that allows businesses to connect employees to the company's internal network and applications via any number of broadband internet, 4G/LTE, or MPLS connections.
SD-WAN solutions were created to mitigate the challenges that network outages can create. Organizations have become more geographically dispersed and use a growing number of cloud-based applications, which raises the need for SD-WAN solutions.
Routers are not cloud-friendly. They were designed with on-premises apps in mind from the start. The current standard is to link people and things using both on-premises and cloud-based applications.
As a result of this change, a new VPN technology is emerging. SD-WAN VPN is one such technology. SD-WAN is an architecture that takes advantage of current network infrastructure.
The Secure Remote Access VPN allows businesses to securely access and collaborate with their applications hosted on-premises and in the cloud, such as Salesforce, Hosted Active Directory, Office365 for Business, Service Now, Dynamic 365 ERP, and other similar products.
This approach provides a consistent user experience while saving costs over internet-based VPNs, but it maintains the performance and agility of MPLS VPNs regardless of location.
SD-WAN solutions may be physical devices or virtual appliances, which are deployed in remote and branch offices, corporate data centers, and increasingly on cloud platforms.
SD-WAN software from such firms as Juniper, Aryaka, Netgear, and Cisco is available. The Aryaka SmartACCESS SD-WAN solution includes clientless SD-WAN VPN as one of its functions.
If you want to use SD-WAN for remote working, you'll need an SD-WAN managed service provider like SD-WAN as a Service or a skilled Network Engineer.
For employees who need access to both on-premise and cloud-based apps, SD-WAN VPN may be the most attractive option. The SD-WAN approach of organized, template-driven policies may be straightforwardly applied to remote access, allowing for consistent access controls.
Cloud VPN
Usually, a Cloud VPN is known as VPNaaS, is the finest form of VPN technology developed especially for applications and data which work on cloud networks. However, while cloud computing has given organizations various benefits, it has also exposed them to new security risks. Traditional VPNs like those mentioned previously are no longer sufficient to protect data.
Employees are increasingly using cloud applications and data from their employer's network, but because of the COVID-19 epidemic, they are utilizing their home networks, personal computers, and mobile devices to access these apps more frequently.
This raises a lot of security issues because it leaves users exposed. While cloud service providers provide the network infrastructure, they do not have control over personal devices used by end-users.
Cloud VPNs are designed to allow employees and remote workers access to cloud resources from anywhere in the world while still maintaining security. A Cloud VPN, unlike traditional VPNs that require some type of on-premises VPN infrastructure, offers a globally accessible secure connection.
For businesses whose business LAN environment or day-to-day business applications, such as ERP or Active Directory Services, have migrated to the cloud, Cloud VPN is the most cost-effective and secure solution.
Perimeter 81 offers Perimeter VPN cloud services that may be purchased and set up in a few hours or minutes to establish a Site-To-Site IPSec tunnel to your cloud servers. Cloud VPN services are offered by most cloud hosting firms.
Conclusion
Pandemic has caused a great loss for the traditional working environment but on the other hand, it has provided opportunities to have more robust online working models to implement.
In this article, we have provided you with all the ways which are beneficial to connect remote employees virtually by using the latest VPN technology. It is recommended to assess your specific situations and decide which variant is good for you.