What is Site-to-Site VPN?
A site-to-site VPN is a type of Virtual Private Network (VPN) that securely connects geographically separated office locations, allowing shared communication channels to function as dedicated lines. There are two main approaches to achieving site-to-site VPN connectivity:
Closed-network solutions provided by communication service providers:
These solutions use private communication networks that are shared among multiple user organizations. Techniques like MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching) and VPLS (Virtual Private LAN Service) are employed to separate communications for each organization. Examples include IP-VPN, which uses wide-area IP networks, and broadband Ethernet-based services.
Internet-based VPNs:
This approach leverages the internet as the communication channel, embedding authentication and encryption technologies to ensure the security of the data path. Common methods include IPsec, PPTP (Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol), and SSL/TLS.
Recently, internet VPNs have grown in popularity for site-to-site applications, with IPsec VPNs being the most prevalent solution. For remote access from mobile devices to internal systems, SSL VPNs are becoming the standard.
F5 offers the F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM), which supports both IPsec VPN and SSL VPN to facilitate secure site-to-site and remote-access VPN connections.