You’ve probably seen the acronym “VPN” here and there, but it seems like it’s rarely explained so most people remain mystified. If you try to look it up, you’re likely to find information that makes it even more confusing rather than clearing things up. So I’m going to keep this simple.
VPN stands for virtual private network, and the technology behind it can be very complicated (as you saw if you clicked on that link above) but the concept is actually pretty simple. A VPN allows you to connect securely to an otherwise closed network.
For instance, I work for a very large company and we have an internal network where our company-wide applications and our network-based storage reside. Normally, none of these resources can be accessed from outside the company’s network; if I tried to access it directly from home, for instance, I would not be able to get in.
However, my company has set up a VPN which allows us to connect remotely to our private network. I use a VPN client (a piece of software which handles creating the secure connection) to login to my work network, and suddenly I can do pretty much everything from home that I can do while sitting at my desk in the office. I still do the vast majority of my work in the office, but having the VPN gives me flexibility that I wouldn’t have otherwise. We had an unusually severe snowstorm last December that pretty much shut down the town for 3 or 4 days (hey, we live in Portland–we are NOT prepared for serious snow!). We have employees in many states, though, not just in Portland, so we still had to be able to support them as much as possible. The VPN allowed me and a small team of co-workers (along with 2 employees who live close enough to our building to walk into the office) to process critical checks and to respond to urgent questions, even though most of us couldn’t get to work.
Pretty cool, huh?
The other side of the coin, of course, is that work sometimes follows me home. Doh!
Oh well, I think it’s worth it for the benefits. Every other Monday when we’re processing payroll–and I have to monitor it until it completes–I am nothing but thankful that I can do that from home. It usually finishes shortly before bedtime!
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