At my company we are currently using site to site VPN connections. I am currently looking into getting private line connections at each site and using the internet connection through our main location.
If it was up to you how would you setup a network with around 20 remote sites with 300+ total users who need to access resources at the main location?
Large pipe at main site… smaller pipe at banch offices… Redundancy at all sites. Site to site IPsec VPNs with QOS for vital resources. Browsing out branch office pipes with low priority.
Leased lines are gonna get expensive and quick. And not just a one time deal expensive the month over month expense that management hates.
This would really depend on the resources you plan to serve out of your main office. What issues do you have with the current VPN solution that are causing you to look at alternatives?
I work for a company here in So-Cal, we have 3 T1’s coming into the office, and a 1.5 MB to our 5 Satellite offices through XO/ATT. On our side, we have a Sonicwall concentrator, and on the sales office side we have sonicwall TZ’s… works great, connectivity is good enough to run Citrix Xendesktop / Xenapp. You just configure a secret key on both the concentrator and the TZ… just set up a /28 subnet at the offices… only 4 users and a copier per sales office
If you care at all about QoS, then you will not use VPN.
Leased lines are great but costly (especially for long distances).
MPLS is a great solution but a little bit of a waste if your sites don’t need to communicate with eachother. That said, you can go with something like Verizon Business and get Secure Internet Gateway so you effectively have shared bandwidth throughout all of the sites, as well as QoS between sites. Downside is that the ordering and configuration can have a steep learning curve, and the cost will still be way higher than VPNs.
Why link them at all?
I am currently looking into getting private line connections at each site and using the internet connection through our main location.
That sounds like a really bad idea. Why would there be any benefit to that? The internet connections at your remote sites are going to be dog slow, and the lines will be expensive, and you’ll have a single point of failure for the internet company-wide.
I talked with my sales rep from Integra Telecom yesterday and he said that they offer their site to site VPN connection over several different technologies including DSL.
http://www.integratelecom.com/services/VPN_and_Network_Solutions.php
Right now the company is growing like a weed and are having some issues scaling, mainly with time. I am looking for a something that won’t go down and if we get a new location all that is needed would be the network connection.
Shared intranet, presumably.
ohhh i didnt really think of DSL as a leased line. Normally a leased line is considered t1s/fiber/metro ethernet/ds3 things like that
Mind if I ask what Integra service area you are in?
I was looking at some options for three locations in California (Central, Bay Area, and LA)
Located throughout the western US, HQ in Tacoma, WA. Other sites throughout Washington, Idaho, Nevada, California, and New Mexico.
We just got a 20/20 ethernet connection to our HQ that is still in “testing” phase, which means its set for 100/100. I am getting 94/63 real world speeds at the moment.