Frontdoor Firewall Appliance
Virtual Private Networks (VPN)
Site-To-Site VPN
Frontdoor's Site-To-Site Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) create secure tunnels between remote networks. Traffic is secured with Triple DES encryption and validated using either MD5 or SHA-1 authentication methods.
Once the traffic is secured and validated it is then routed across the public network transparently. Neither private network is aware of the tunnel, so no additional configuration is required.
Using industry-standard IKE key exchange and IPSEC encryption, Frontdoor is compatible with leading firewalls and VPN concentrators. These VPNs allow our customers to expand their wide area networks while staying on budget.
Virtual Private Networks provide a cost effective, highly secure alternative to traditional WAN links by using your existing connection to the Internet. By leveraging your existing Internet connections you can lower the costs associated with maintaining and managing your WAN.
Without VPNs:
In the past, companies used frame relay or dedicated T1s for office to office networking. While this was reliable and reasonably secure it was simply not cost effective. Below is a diagram of a typical WAN consisting of three sites:
| Expenses |
| Item |
Cost per |
Initial Cost |
Monthly Expense |
| Routers |
3 * $2,500 |
$7,500 |
|
| ISP |
1 * $1,000 |
|
$1,000 |
| Frame Relay |
3 * $750 |
$1,500 |
$2,250 |
| Firewalls |
1 * $2000 |
$2,000 |
|
| Total: |
|
$9,000 |
$3,250 |
The prices used are only an estimate and do not include all related expenses.
With VPNs:
Using VPNs instead of traditional WANs allows us to improve security and cut expenses at the same time.
Newer internet access technology such as DSL, has significantly lowered the cost of internet access. We can
leverage this by connecting each site to the Internet independently. Since the sites now have fewer or no
serial links, the cost of the networking equipment is also reduced. An example:
| Expenses |
| Item |
Cost per |
Initial Cost |
Monthly Expense |
| ISP |
3 * $500 |
|
$1,500 |
| Firewalls |
3 * $2,000 |
$6,000 |
|
| Total: |
|
$6,000 |
$1,500 |
The prices used are only an estimate and do not include all related expenses.
Besides the obvious savings the example above has several key advantages:
- Security - All traffic between sites is encrypted. Connections from site to site can now be restricted with firewall policies.
- Lower Bandwidth usage - Traffic bound for the Internet is no longer routed back to the central
site.
- Scaleability - Bringing a new site online is less expensive, less time consuming, and far less complicated.
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