The majority of your employees are undoubtedly working at home because of COVID-19. It is now very important that collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams, WebEx, Google HangOuts and of course internal applications continue to work optimally in order to guarantee the continuity of business operations. That sometimes presents a considerable challenge.
How do you ensure that all applications are easily accessible from home, so that you can work together safely with optimal performance?
One thing is certain; Corporate Internet connections are now significantly more utilized. Chances are that you, as an IT manager, are considering an “upgrade” of the central IT infrastructure, or have just initiated it. Naturally at IPknowledge we are happy to supply the extra required Internet capacity at any time. But is this really necessary? In this blog we will discuss this dilemma, how it is usually solved, but also how it can be done differently.
The current challenge
The home worker data traffic is usually first sent to a central node in the company network. For security reasons, this runs via a so-called “VPN tunnel” to a firewall or VPN concentrator in the data center. This works great for accessing your internal applications. However, nowadays a large and growing part of the data traffic is to the Internet and Cloud. Therefore, once the data traffic reaches the company firewall for inspection, the majority is routed back over the same Internet access line.
The result is several adverse effects: the Internet line is utilized more heavily with the same traffic. The traffic takes a detour which can negatively affects application performance. The central firewall may become a ‘choke-point’ when congested.
For home workers from International companies the impact on application performance may be more severe. Their traffic often needs to take an “international trip” to reach the nearest corporate data center. Unless their company runs a data centers in their home country, the detour is much longer.
The strength lies in the simplicity
We do not connect home workers to your business applications via traditional VPN concentrators, but via OneWAN VPN. Working from home is faster or just as fast and safe as in the office. Internet traffic no longer flows through your data centers, so an upgrade if your corporate Internet infrastructure is not necessary in many cases. All traffic from the home worker travels via OneWAN Secure Cloud with full visibility and control, without detour, without extra devices. That is the power of simplicity.
This is how OneWAN VPN works
We install a simple device in your data center(s) (or any other important business location) for a secure connection to the OneWAN Cloud. This will make all internal business applications securely accessible. All your home workers have to do is also connect to OneWAN Cloud, which is world wide available and close by everywhere.
So-called “End User VPN clients” can be provided to your home workers to install on their device, usually a laptop, mobile, iPad, or tablet. You have full control on what users are allowed on the Internet and to your internal applications. Connecting end users is even possible without VPN client: the OneWAN web portal is available as an alternative access method for end-users. With this portal you as an IT manager can quickly and securely offer internal web applications to external users.
Conclusion
With OneWAN VPN, your entire company network extends to the home workplace securely and your home workers are protected against malware and hackers!
Working remote becomes as fast and safe as it is from the office. Problems with firewalls and other complicated devices in your data center have been solved, because all logic, including security, is now in the OneWAN Cloud.
10 benefits with OneWAN VPN
The way of working together quickly, safely and without hassle has changed considerably. The feedback we get from IT managers about OneWAN is that the pressure on the IT department for extra capacity and VPN clients has been resolved. We mainly hear from home workers that they are impressed by the responsiveness of business applications and the high quality using collaboration tools. In short, we deliver digital performance.
Summarized:
- For just a few euros per employee, you enable safe and optimal digital performance from the home workplace, but also from any other worldwide location when we are allowed to travel again.
- OneWAN VPN works immediately and worldwide, after simply connecting your datacenter.
- A fully scaleable solution, from 500 to 500,000 employees.
- A user interface that everyone can understand.
- Easy to manage and monitor, of course also by IPknowledge “Network-as-a-Service” Service Assurance.
- A secure Next Generation VPN, which includes logging, malware prevention, Intrusion Prevention and Detection etc.
- Simple and full integration into Active Directory (AD) for Single Sign On (SSO) and support for Multi Factor Authentication (MFA)
- Fast and flexible deployment via VPN client on laptop or home computer or alternatively through clientless VPN Web portal that is directly accessible without installing software.
- Autonomy. Digital performance without being Telco-dependent. All internet connections on site can be used simultaneously (active-active) with full load balancing of data traffic. (Also behind Network Address Translation, NAT)
- No shadow IT, not even from the home workplace, because everything works as always.
Would you also like to facilitate your home workers optimally and internationally? Do it now and contact us here to let your home workers enjoy a safe and responsive connection to all the applications they need.
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