As the VPN market evolves and expands, the differences between various classifications and architectures become somewhat blurred. Features that were historically available only through software or firewall-based solutions are now offered by hardware vendors, while stand-alone applications might offer to improve performance by supporting encrypting routers. Newer developments such as IPsec provide a standard to create custom solutions.

There are basically three types of VPN:

INTRANET: this type of VPN is usually implemented for commonly structured networks that may span various physical locations. An example would be a network that exists in several buildings connected to a data center or mainframe that has secure access through private lines. These may need strong encryption and strict performance and bandwidth requirements.

REMOTE ACCESS: Initiated by remote users to connect to their corporate LAN such as employees and telecommuters equipped with laptops that will connect intermittently from many different locations.

EXTRANET: This type of VPN uses the Internet as its base and deals with a wider scale of users and locations to allow customers and branch offices to access corporate resources across various network types.

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by KeysCapt