VPN costs?

[Theophilus]

Can anyone give me some idea of the costs of setting up VPN access to a small office in Australia? For those who don't know, a VPN is a Virtual Private Network to give remote users secure access over the Internet to an office network.

[koosp]

Can anyone give me some idea of the costs of setting up VPN access to a small office in Australia? For those who don't know, a VPN is a Virtual Private Network to give remote users secure access over the Internet to an office network.

One option is to use Hamachi a free ware program that you can set-up yourself. It gives you access to shared files. My advice as a non-specialist and doesn't cost anything

[Search]

Hi There,

I take it you mean client access VPN and not "site-to-site"?

Client VPN access you can do very easily, you basically need x2 things.

1. Internet breakout at the office

2. Device to terminate the vpn on

PM or drop me a mail should you need more info.

Cheers,

[Theophilus]

Thanks for your replies.

Yes, I'm referring to client access - a few users accessing a small office network over the Internet. It would need some sort of VPN device/appliance/router at the office and I would prefer a solution that uses hardware crypto tokens on the client side for added security.

Just need a rough idea for the costs involved in such a solution.

Thanks a lot.

[Dirtbikerider]

When we came over to Aus for our LSD, I still needed to have full access to all my data in SA on my machines so we installed and set up Radmin, if memory serves me correct it was for free and worked well.

Did all my checking and replying to e-mails and invoicing, printing on SA printers and all.

Hilton

[Theophilus]

Thanks, Hilton, but I'm particularly interested in VPN solutions using hardware crypto tokens. The problem with software keys is that if someone hacks into a client's PC and copies the private key and certificate, then they have easy access to your private network.

[Search]

You can use "RSA" hardware tokens (OTP) but that might be pricey solution as I think cost are +-R500 per token and you would require a device i.e. server to run the RSA software (steelbelted radius) and this mean server hardware, operating system and licensing ect. How many user's are you looking at?

[Theophilus]

Thanks for your reply, Search. Let me be a bit more transparent... I'm fishing to see what other VPN solutions cost to see if I can offer a cost-effective alternative. I'm aware that you can set up a software VPN for free, but the danger is that if someone hacks into a client machine and copies the private key and certificate, they have open access to your private network. I'm working on a hardware VPN solution using crypto tokens and a VPN 'appliance' server (low-power, embedded server). With hardware crypto tokens, it's essentially impossible for a hacker to copy your private key. So, while many people will be happy to use the software-only approach (or they may be blissfully unaware of the dangers of that approach), there are others who will be prepared to pay for the added security of the hardware approach.

So, I'm trying to find out what is commonly charged for a hardware VPN solution (tokens + VPN appliance). I'm aware of a Cisco solution that uses a low-end Cisco router that costs about USD400 plus the cost of the crypto tokens. I'm not sure if they charge anything on top of the USD400 for VPN software. I want to provide a more cost-effective solution, but need some guidance on how to price the offering.

Thanks