[vpn] Planing a VPN - Are we doing the best thing ?

[dgillett at deepforest.org]

On 20 Jan 2002, at 14:46, Phillips, Kevin wrote:

> I have an office of 35 people and need to connect to 2 other
> offices of similar size. We will also have about 30 people total
> that will need access from home and on the road. 
>
> The parent company IT group tell us we need to use the PIX 506
> plus a 2000 server running ISA for the firewall/VPN. I get the
> impression that the 506 is not big enough and that a 515 is more
> suitable. 
>
> I have looked around on vpnlabs.org and found a lot of info but
> still need a dummies guide to VPN. 
>
> Thanks all,
> 
> Kevin Phillips
> IT Systems technician
> Barco Graphics
> 40 Westover Road
> Ludlow, MA 01056
> kevin.phillips at barco.com

  There are two common VPN situations, and you will be using both:  
LAN-to-LAN to connect between offices, and Remote Access to support 
your home/road users.

  It seems to me that you could use *either* a PIX or an ISA server 
to support both kinds of use; you will need a device in each of your 
three offices, and if it's the PIX then you may also need to 
distribute client software to your home/road users.  (OR, if not 
actual software, at least instructions on how to connect....)

  I cannot imagine a working solution that uses a total of two 
devices, of different types.  Can your parent company group provide 
more details of what they have in mind?

  As for what model of PIX, the determining factor is probably how 
much Internet bandwidth you have at each office.  I wouldn't expect 
the PIX to be the bottleneck.

Dave Gillett



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