Case study of Virtual Private Network

A prototype of a Virtual Private Network (VPN) is designed and developed. The goal of this VPN is to connect Medical Doctors' offices from different locations in New York Area. The company has two billing systems, one in the main office and the other one located at a remote site. We maintain the data coherence of the billing systems for this distributed environment by a point-to-point connection using a T1 line with a backup DSL line for fault tolerance purpose. Each site has a router that authenticates and routes information to each location. The other remote office accesses the billing system in main. office through the Internet by a DSL line to see any receivables and any transactions or patients' updates. through the Internet. This remote office will communicate through the Internet with an encrypted tunnel carrying an IP address using VPN technique. In this study, business benefits for this VPN and protocols, techniques; equipments used in this VPN are reported. In addition, our design experience for fault tolerance, security and network management and administration on this VPN are showed. Finally, the issues for future planning of this VPN is addressed.