The advantages of a network-based VPN

The advantages of a network-based VPN aretwofold. First, data aggregation and scalability areachieved by terminating all VPN sessions from clientsat the IPSS and transporting data packets over a single VPN session from the IPSS to the enterprise VPNgateway. Because the enterprise VPN gateway has toterminate only one VPN session, even when the number of VPN client sessions increases, the amount ofVPN session information—including security association (SA) information—that must be maintained atthe enterprise VPN gateway does not increase. Thus,data aggregation for VPN sessions is itself a valueadded service that an NSP can offer to its customers.Second, because packets are decrypted at the IPSS, it is possible to offer value-added services (e.g., firewallservice, URL filtering, and caching service) that require packet and application header inspection withinthe service provider network and then to offloadpackets that have to be sent directly over the networkwithout sending them to the enterprise. In contrast, aservice provider cannot provide these services to packets in transit toward an enterprise over an end-to-endnetwork, because the necessary packet and application headers are not visible in the clear in the network. Note that these services not only increaserevenue opportunities for NSPs, but also benefitenterprises by enabling them to outsource these services to the NSP

Framework for dynamic optical virtual private networks (VPNs): architecture and analysi

Optical wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) technology, which has a high bandwidth capacity, is becoming apractical reality with recent technological advances [1]. Suchnetworks are expected to play a dominant role in the nextgeneration networks. Currently, communication trafficcontains more and more types of traffic flows, includingmultimedia information, which has different delay and jitterrequirements from some non-real-time traffic. Thus, there isgreat diversity of service requirements among traffic flowson optical networks. All these requirements cannot be metby the currently deployed synchronous network technology(SONET/SDH). This motivates the consideration of opticalvirtual private networks (VPN). In optical VPNs, customerscan contract for a variety of network resources such as linkbandwidth, wavelength, or optical connection ports. Theoptical VPN service gives customers private ownership oftheir optical bandwidth, including the capability to control,manage, monitor and provision optical circuits, without theburden of maintaining a physical network infrastructure.Optical VPNs provide a new revenue stream for serviceproviders.A VPN is an overlay network that is built above a publicnetwork infrastructure, providing the VPN user with aprivate network using tunnelling, encryption and authentication mechanisms [2]. VPNs are gaining increasedacceptance due to their economic benefits and the maturingtechnology. VPNs may be built above different types ofpublic network, such as frame relay, ATMor the Internet.The primary advantages of VPNs over the Internet are theircost-effectiveness and flexibility. However, the disadvantages of VPNs over the Internet are lack of reliability andsufficient quality of service (QoS) mechanisms.Recently, there have been proposals to embed offlineVPNs over WDMoptical networks [3, 4]. The proposal in[3] requires that VPN users have pre-allocated all the lightpaths to different traffic streams. This is hard to handlewhen burst or no pre-planned traffic streams occur andrequires dynamic lightpaths setup, In this paper, we furtherexplore the problem of online VPN design, in particularWDMrouted networks [1]. The WDMrouted networkprovides an 'optical connection' layer which consists ofseveral lightpaths. A lightpath is defined as an all-opticalconnection from the source node to destination node,traversing several intermediate optical wavelength routingnodes.The basic difference between the online VPN and offlineVPN is that lightpaths in an online VPN can bedynamically set up and released when necessary; lightpathsin an offline VPN are pre-defined and cannot be changedduring the transmission process.An architecture for an online VPN over WDMisproposed and a preliminary study conducted. The networkarchitecture considered is as follows. A network providerowns an optical WDMbackbone network and providescapacity to users (e.g. large corporations) requiring VPNservices. A VPN is specified by a set of nodes that need tobe interconnected. The network provider accommodates theVPNs its objective being to maximise the total traffic ofVPNs and to optimise use of the backbone capacity. Theproposed architecture separates the different VPNs in theoptical domain by providing lightpaths with differenttransmission qualities to meet the different VPN topologies.Borrowing items from asynchronous transfer mode (ATM),we consider the following three types of traffic.Constant bit rate (CBR): CBR classified traffic is normallyintended for traffic with very stringent timing requirements.This type of traffic requires a constant cell transmission ratefor the entire duration of the connection.Variable bit rate (VBR): this service is intended for burstytraffic, such as transaction processing applications andLAN interconnection.Unspecified bit rate (UBR) and available bit rate (ABR):UBR traffic is for applications which send data across thenetwork with no guarantee when that data will arrive at itsdestination. ABR is similar in the sense that it makes use ofany available bandwidth and reduces the transmission ratewhen the network is congested.The QoS model proposed allows three types of VPN:static, optical burst switching(OBS) and alternative VPNs.The static type has a set of dedicated or shared pre-allocatedlightpaths to transmit its packets. This type has the highestquality of service and thus is only applicable to traffic withconstant bit rate (CBR). The burst type requires dynamically setup lightpaths when traffic streams with variable bitrate (VBR) have requests. We tend to set up the dynamiclightpath using optical burst switching (OBS). The alternative type provides a service to the traffic streams whichhas no guarantee, e.g. UBR or ABR traffic. Lightpath setuptakes a long time due to the two-way reservation methodadopted.There are several advantages for this architecture. First,by setting up lightpaths for the VPN traffic stream, packetsdo not need any buffer once they enter the optical corenetwork and flows can guarantee minimum delay andreliability. Furthermore, by routing or switching opticalsignals to different routes in the optical domain without anyO/E/O conversion, one can reduce the complexity of theoptical switching and simplify management of networks in awide area network.

Easy VPNs Secure Wi-Fi at Home and on the Road

MILLIONS OF PC users today are living dangerously-and I'm not talking about using their laptops in the tub. The risky behavior I have in mind involves using an unsecured Wi-Fi network.

Lots of people forgo security because they think it's too complicated or they fear performance problems. But now you can get the strong security that enterprises use, without encountering a lot of hassles. Using an unsecured network at home or at a public hotspot is unquestionably dangerous: It's not hard for someone to grab your passwords or other data under those circumstances.

Many business travelers and remote workers use a virtual private network to connect to their offices. A VPN shields the con tents of any Wi-Fi connection by encrypting the communication and routing it through a trusted network. Traditionally, setting up a VPN server on a home PC has been about as easy for most people as building a nuclear reactor in the basement. But new VPN tools now make this robust technology available to the masses.

If you frequently use public hotspots, VPN service from Mega Proxy (www.megaproxy.com) is a good security choice. It costs $10 for three months (a free version with restrictions is also available). MegaProxy's one weakness is that it protects only your Web browsing traffic and not other forms of communication, such as instant messages or P0P3 e-mail exchanges.

Home users can transform certain models of routers into power house VPN servers by upgrading the router's firmware. Sveasoft's Alchemy software (find.pcworld.com/46582), for example, replaces the original firmware in several models of Linksys home or small office Wi-Fi routers. The company charges $20 for a year.

Updating firmware is always slightly risky, because a botched up grade can turn your gateway into a doorstop; and installing Sveasoft's firmware will void the warranty on your gateway. But Alchemy can turn a plain-vanilla Linksys WRT-54G gateway, for example, into a truly robust security device.

Whatever else you do, take steps to secure your network. Save your risky behavior for something more fun, like skydiving.

Netronome Unleashes Suite of Software Application Kits for Flow Processing in Cyber Security Designs

Netronome, the leading developer of flow processors, announced the availability of a major upgrade to its Network Flow Management (NFM) software framework including new application kits for next-generation firewalls (NGFW), IPsec, intrusion prevention systems (IPS) and SSL inspection. Netronome's NFM provides a comprehensive suite of production-ready reference software for the NFP-3240 network flow processors (NFP) that accelerates a wide variety of cyber security applications to industry leading throughputs.

"Netronome's new software application kits provide an extensive set of building blocks for security applications," said Joe Byrne, senior analyst at The Linley Group. "That enables OEMs to focus on development of their applications, while significantly increasing performance with Netronome's flow processors."

Netronome's IDS/IPS application kit accelerates x86-based IDS/IPS applications through hardware-based packet classification, stateful management of flows, and an integrated, dynamic load balancer. The NGFW application kit augments the IDS/IPS use case with capabilities which allow policy enforcement and packet forwarding between multiple network segments using integrated L2 and L3 forwarding with network address and port translation (NAPT), IPsec VPN support and SSL inspection. Netronome is also making the IPsec and SSL inspection application kits available as standalone application kits for integration within other applications and use cases.

"Networking OEMs are designing 100 Gbps applications that require full visibility into all layers of network traffic, including encrypted communications," said Jarrod Siket, senior vice president of marketing at Netronome. "With Netronome's innovative, workload-specific processing architecture vendors can combine Netronome's flow processors and software application kits with standard x86 processors to bring high-performance security products to market quickly."

There is no doubt that Hollywood

There is no doubt that Hollywood is the leading film industry around the globe and its standards are getting higher every day. Of course there are many other movie industries up and running around the world but not a single one can match the amazing movies made by Hollywood. The reason why Hollywood is leading the pack is the use of technology, quality, talent and finances which beats every other film industry in the world. Hollywood movies have gone so ahead in the use of technology in the movies, while we cannot forget the fact the amount of finances being used in every movie.

Internet has also become a very important part of life for every one nowadays and it seems that US film industry is also taking support from it. People around the world can get familiar with everything about the Hollywood movies, movie stars and much more with the help of internet. That's not it; people also have started to watch movies on the internet as well. Obviously, Hollywood has gained so much publicity and finances with this extra marketing.

Protocol security (L2TP/IPSec), to connect remote clients and remote

Learn about the extensive support for virtual private network (VPN) technologies in Microsoft Windows using the resources on this page. An extension of a private network, a VPN encompasses links across shared or public networks. VPN connections use the connectivity of the Internet plus a combination of tunneling and data encryption technologies, such as the Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) and Layer Two Tunneling Protocol with Internet Protocol security (L2TP/IPSec), to connect remote clients and remote 

A virtual private network (VPN)

A virtual private network (VPN) is a network using the public telecommunication infrastructure,such as the Internet to provide remote offices or mobile users to access the central network of organizations.
Usually need to VPN to authenticate the remote user's network, often secure data encryption technology to prevent unauthorized parties to the private dissemination of information.
VPN allows all network functions, all of the network, such as the exchange of data and access to network resources, printers, databases, websites and other VPN users often encounter the same way with a direct connection to a central hub network. On the public Internet VPN technology has replaced the acquisition and maintenance of expensive dedicated leased lines, telecommunication lines, a typical WAN installation.