How to set up an office VPN for remote workers

Many businesses are going through unprecedented challenges due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Most IT departments are having to think on their feet to ensure employees can still be productive during what might be an extended period of disruption. At times like this remote access solutions and free remote desktop software become critical to ensuring continued business operation. 

Most organizations may have previously done this to some degree; for others, this is an entirely new concept. Whichever case, the need is now greater than ever to ensure staff is able to remotely and securely access office resources to carry on with critical activities. Some companies are stuck between adopting a complete or partial remote-working scenario, struggling with upgrades that are required to allow employees to work from home.  

One key technology that is crucial to enabling secure remote access to your organization’s internal network is a Virtual Private Network (VPN). In a small office where only an individual or two needs to connect to one or two office computers from home, a remote desktop application like GoToMyPC or PCAnywhere may be preferable. However, if business needs require multiple remote connections, a full VPN is the most viable option. 

How a VPN Works  

A VPN allows you to create a secure virtual tunnel to your office network through the public network such as the internet. It protects confidentiality (data remains secret via encapsulation) and integrity (data remains unaltered via encryption) of data as it travels over the public internet. You can liken VPN tunneling to the process of moving physical cash from one location to another using an armored transport van along public highways. The cash in this instance is your data, the public highway is the non-secure public network, and the armored van is the VPN tunnel. Encapsulation disguises the van so in most cases it won’t be recognized as a vehicle carrying cash, while encryption ensures that even if the van is recognized, no one can access the cash inside. The diagram in Figure 1.0 below helps you visualize the process.

VPN Tunnel
Figure 1.0 VPN Tunneling Process

Establishing a secure VPN connection is relatively simple. The user first connects to the internet and then initiates a VPN connection via a locally installed client software or web browser to the VPN server located in the office. The VPN server based on your access level permission grants you access to internal company resources via the secure tunnel; thus, keeping data secure and private over the internet. Below are the different possible ways you can implement an office VPN so your employees can remotely access office resources without compromising security. We’ll go into each of these in more detail. 

  1. Remote access VPN 
  2. Cloud VPN
  3. SD-WAN VPN

Remote Access VPN

Remote-access VPNs just as the name implies, allow mobile employees or remote workers to access their company’s intranet from home or anywhere in the world using their personal computers or mobile phones. Users can access the resources on the office computers as if they were directly connected to the office network. The two most commonly used technologies in remote access VPNs are IPSec and SSL

IPsec is the most widely used VPN technology. Because it provides protection at the IP level layer (Layer 3), it can be deployed to secure communication between the office network and a host computer used at home. A client application is required at the host computer in order to establish a connection.  IPsec was designed to ensure data integrity and confidentiality, and offers enterprise-grade security features. 

The greatest strength of SSL VPN comes from the fact that it is platform-independent. You do not have to depend on a third-party VPN client to initiate connections. Using any web browser, you can access resources remotely without worrying about the underlying operating system. 

In order to setup an office VPN (IPsec or SSL VPN) to support working from home, you’ll need to purchase, install and configure a hardware device known as VPN Gateway in your office location. Some of the leading VPN hardware vendors/products include Cisco ASA firewall for SSL VPN and IPsec VPN, Check Point Next Generation Firewall, and Sophos XG Firewall, among others. Configuring the VPN itself is quite vendor-specific and would require the services of qualified personnel such as a Network Engineer or a third-party service provider, but some devices have a GUI user interface or a wizard-type configuration process.

The initial investment needed to set up a remote access VPN is minimal and they can easily be scaled as a company grows. This is especially true if a VPN service provider is used. Because remote access VPNs are affordable and secure, organizations can feel more comfortable deploying them and allowing their employees to work from home.

See also: IPSec vs SSL

Cloud VPN

A Cloud VPN, also known as VPN as a Service (VPNaaS) is a novel VPN technology that’s specifically designed for cloud-based applications and data. Many modern businesses have transitioned their local network environment, business applications and data into the cloud, and conventional VPNs such as those described above are no longer enough to ensure data security. 

Employees usually access these cloud applications and data from the office network; but with the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, employees are increasingly relying on their own home network, personal computers and mobile devices to access these applications. This raises a lot of security concerns. While cloud service providers offer the network infrastructure, it does not provide security for personal devices used by end-users.

The objective of cloud VPN is to give employees and remote workers secure access to cloud resources through a cloud-based VPN infrastructure over the public Internet from any location in the world without undermining security. Unlike traditional VPNs, which require some sort of on-premise VPN infrastructure, a Cloud VPN provides a globally accessible secure connection. For organizations whose business LAN environment or day-to-day business applications (such as ERP or Active Directory Services) have moved to the cloud, Cloud VPN offers the best alternative for cheap and secure access. 

Cloud VPN services can be obtained from providers such as Perimeter 81 and NordLayer can be configured in a matter of hours or minutes to establish a Site-To-Site IPSec VPN tunnel to your cloud servers. Most cloud service providers such as Google, Microsoft and Amazon also provide Cloud VPN services.

Perimeter 81 Coupon
Save 20% on annual plans
Get Deal >
Coupon applied automatically
NordLayer Remote Access Coupon
Save up to 22% on annual plans
Get Deal >
Discount applied automatically

See also: Best Cloud VPNs for Business

SD-WAN VPN 

For businesses that house both on-premise and cloud-based applications, neither Remote Access VPN nor Cloud VPN is adequate to ensure unified end-to-end data security. One technology that can adequately address this unique business requirement is Software-Defined WAN (SD-WAN) technology. 

See also: Best SD-Wan Vendors

SD-WAN is a virtual wide area network (WAN) architecture that allows organizations to leverage any combination of network transport technologies such MPLS, 4G/LTE and broadband internet services to securely connect users to the office intranet and applications. SD-WAN is necessitated by the fact that organizations have become more geographically dispersed and utilize a growing number of cloud-based applications. 

Traditional WAN approaches using conventional routers are not cloud-friendly. They were designed around on-premise applications. Today, deploying a mix of on-premise and cloud-based applications and connecting people and ‘things’ is the new norm. This shift is giving rise to an alternative VPN technology that is more dynamic – SD-WAN VPN. The SD-WAN model is designed to fully support secure remote access to critical enterprise applications hosted on-premise and in the cloud (such as Office365 for business, Dynamic 365 ERP, Salesforce, Service Now, Hosted Active Directory, etc.), while delivering the highest levels of application performance. This approach provides a consistent user experience as well as the cost benefits of internet-based VPNs with the performance and agility of MPLS VPNs regardless of location.  

SD-WAN products can be physical appliances or virtual appliances and are placed in remote and branch offices, corporate data centers, and increasingly on cloud platforms. Most network appliance vendors such as Cisco, Juniper, and Aryaka, among others, also offer SD-WAN products. The Aryaka SmartACCESS SD-WAN solution, for example, delivers clientless SD-WAN VPN for the remote and mobile workforce. If you are considering deploying SD-WAN VPN for remote working, you will require the services of an SD-WAN managed service provider (SD-WAN as a Service) or a skilled Network Engineer. The network diagram in Figure 2.0 below helps visualize the SD-WAN setup. 

SD-WAN Network
Figure 2.0 SD-WAN VPN infrastructure diagram

For the transition to remote work and granting staff secure access to both on-premise and cloud-based applications, SD-WAN VPN promises to be the viable option. The SD-WAN approach of orchestrated, template-driven policies can be neatly applied to remote access, allowing access to be controlled in consistent ways. The table in Figure 3.0 below is a brief comparison of the various VPN technologies discussed above.  

FeaturesRemote Access VPNCloud VPNSD-WAN VPN
Ideal For
Secure access to on-premise applications and dataSecure access to cloud applications and data

Secure access to on-premise and cloud applications and data
Target Consumer
BusinessBusinessBusiness
Deployment Skill Level
skilled laborskilled laborHighly skilled labor
PerformanceGoodGoodVery Good
Pricing Model One-time fee or subscription basedSubscription basedOne-time fee or subscription based

Remote access VPN FAQs

Can I work from home with a VPN?

A remote worker can become part of the office network by using a secure link that is protected with a VPN. While consumer VPN systems connect the user to a VPN server, which is based in the cloud, a remote access VPN needs to have an office server set up as the destination of the connection. Once established, the VPN connection persists and all of the traffic from the user’s computers travels down that tunnel. This means that the user is locked into the office network and can’t perform any other direct connections to the internet while the VPN session is live.

Does VPN work on all devices in a house?

A VPN can cover all devices in a house with one installation if the VPN client software is installed on the home router. For the remote access needed by work-from-home employees, placing the VPN on the home router is a bad idea. This is because the remote access jams all access to the internet other than through the company network. So, a router install would channel all of the traffic of your family to the company network as well. As corporate networks are set up to block internet access for leisure purposes, your family would be blocked from accessing video and games sites while you are logged into the office.

Do I need a VPN to work from home?

Whether or not you need a remote access VPN set up to get into the company network and work from home depends on your company’s network security policy. A new virtual network architecture is emerging, called secure access service edge (SASE), which is more appropriate for linking together sites, cloud platforms, and remote workers.