What types of VPNs are there?

There are many different types of VPNs, but there are three main types that you should definitely be familiar with.

SSL VPN

Often, not all employees of a company have access to a company laptop that they can work from home on. During the new crown crisis in the spring of 2020, many companies are facing a shortage of devices for their employees. In such cases, personal devices (PCs, laptops, tablets, mobile phones) are often used. In such cases, companies turn to SSL-VPN solutions, which are usually implemented via the corresponding hardware boxes.

The prerequisite is usually an HTML-5 enabled browser for calling the company's login page. HTML-5 enabled browsers are available for almost any operating system. Access is protected by a username and password.

Site-to-Site VPN

A site-to-site VPN is essentially a private network designed to hide a dedicated Intranet and allow users of these secure networks to access each other's resources.

Site-to-site VPNs are useful if your company has multiple locations, each with its own local area network (LAN) connected to the WAN (Wide Area Network). Site-to-site VPNs are also useful if you have two separate Intranets and you want to send files between the two separate Intranets without users on one Intranet explicitly accessing the other.

Site-to-site VPNs are mainly used by large companies. They are complex to implement and do not offer the same flexibility as SSL VPNs. However, they are the most effective way to ensure communication within and between large departments.

Client to Server VPNs

It is conceivable to connect via a VPN client, just as you would use an extension cable to connect your home PC to your company. Employees can dial into the company network from their home office via a secure connection, just as if they were sitting in the office. However, the VPN client must first be installed and configured on the computer.

This involves the user not connecting to the Internet through his own ISP, but establishing a direct connection through his/her VPN provider. This essentially shortens the tunneling phase of the VPN journey. Rather than using a VPN to create an encrypted tunnel to disguise an existing Internet connection, a VPN can automatically encrypt the data before it is made available to the user.

This is an increasingly common form of VPN and is particularly useful for insecure public WLAN providers. It prevents third parties from accessing and breaking network connections and encrypts data all the way to the provider. It also prevents the ISP from accessing data that remains unencrypted for whatever reason and bypasses any restrictions on the user's internet access (for example, if the government of the country/region restricts internet access).

The advantages of this type of VPN access are greater efficiency and universal access to company resources. For example, if a suitable telephone system is available, an employee can use a headset to connect to the system and behave as if he/she were at the company workplace. For example, the company's customers cannot even tell if the employee is working in the company or in their home office.

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