Virtual Private Network (VPN) Services: Minnesota OnLine

Virtual Private Network (VPN) Services

Today's work force is becoming increasingly mobile. Users are connecting to their corporate network while telecommuting, traveling, or working from home. In fact, Gartner Group projects the number of telecommuters to quadruple by the year 2002, reaching over 100 million users worldwide. Virtual Private Networks, or VPNs, enable users to connect whenever, wherever or however they require. For most organizations the question becomes, what is a VPN?

Minnesota OnLine can take the confusion and worry out of VPN technology. Being an ISP, we understand the complexities and logistics of using public networks to communicate. Our VPN offerings can be as turnkey as your organization needs. We can provide Internet Access, Security, and Monitoring & Service, all InStep with Tomorrow.

What is a VPN?

A VPN is a business-critical networking system that enables an organization to securely and reliably communicate with its offices, business partners, customers, and employees (both local and remote). VPN's use cryptography to provide a private channel between two or more closed, private networks using an insecure public network as its carrier. The figure below illustrates a typical VPN utilizing the Internet as the backbone.
Internet Cloud Illustration

VPNs offers significant cost savings over multiple dedicated private communications links. One can easily see from our diagram above whereby maintaining "local" connections to the Internet can be more cost effective than dialup or dedicated connections to the corporate office from across the country.

Typical saving for an organization adopting VPN technology is 40-60% annually in the operating budget with some organizations realizing even greater savings. Return on Investment (ROI) can be realized in as little as a few weeks to several months, dependant on the operation.

INTERNET ACCESS

Minnesota OnLine can facilitate the connections for your organization to gain access to the Internet. We can also provide local dial-up service for mobile employees in over 680 towns and cities in the US, in addition to International coverage.

SECURITY

Minnesota OnLine can provide the necessary security to enable your VPN transactions. Minnesota OnLine is a reseller for Cisco Systems, Secure Computing Corp., Axent Technologies, Red Creek, Worldtalk and others. In addition, we offer a complete suite of Data Security Services such as installation, assessment, policy development, and intrusion detection testing.

MONITORING & MANAGEMENT

To further ensure your critical networking systems are running properly with minimum downtime, Minnesota OnLine can provide Network Monitoring and Management. From our Network Control Center (NOC) we can determine if there is an incident, or outage on the network. In the event service is required, we can notify your staff or an Engineer thus ensuring your har dware products and systems are covered and network services are restored in a minimal amount of time.

IN STEP WITH TOMORROW

The future belongs to service providers who can furnish customers with turnkey solutions for their Networking needs. Minnesota OnLine can provision, bill, manage, and maintain your VPN needs. Contact us at info@state.net.