'Any network built upon a public network and partitioned for use by individual customers'. This results in public frame relay, X.25, and ATM networks being considered as VPNs. These types of VPNs are generically referred to a Layer 2 VPNs. The emerging forms of VPNs are networks constructed across shared IP backbones, referred to as 'IP VPNs'.

Put simply, VPNs supply network connectivity over long physical distances. In this respect, VPNs are a form of Wide Area Network (WAN). The key feature of a VPN, however, is its ability to use public networks like the Internet rather than rely on private leased lines. VPN technologies implement restricted-access networks that use the same cabling and routers, as does a public network, and they do so without sacrificing features or basic security.

There are fundamentally three different corporate or business uses of VPNs:

Advantages of VPN

VPNs promise two main advantages over competing approaches - cost savings and scalability. It also allows the Corporations to carry their core business without having to manage constantly changing technology. It significantly brings down cost of ownership of network assets with the same benefits of a private security with better uptimes and redundancies.

GIPL VPNs

GIPL offers the best Internet technologies with all the advantages of private networking. We've designed end-to-end solutions with security features that allow controlled access to employees, business partners and customers delivering a variety of modes of use: Remote access client connections, LAN-to-LAN internet working, Controlled access within an intranet.

GIPL realizes that each kind of VPN has it own challenges, and different ways in which it can be built. The topologies of the different VPNs are also dramatically different. VPNs are not simply encrypted tunnels, but encompass an entire spectrum of technologies. GIPL has the capabilities, technologies and the experience to manage the sophistication and strike the critical balance between Security, Firewalls, Encryption, Authentication / Authorization / Accounting, Intrusion Detection - Active Audit, Tunneling, Quality of Service and Network Management.