Secure VPN - installation costs

[RINTYG]

Hello!

As you will tell from this email, I don't know much about setting up networks etc, so I am relying on all of the experts out there to help me!

Last year, my employer produced a new policy allowing employees to apply to work from home. I applied to work from home but I was told that it would be too expensive to set up a secure VPN connection. I offered to pay the fee myself but they couldn't tell me how much it would cost.

How much, in general, does a secure VPN installation cost? I work for a large organisation that has several sites in my local area and all of the computers are linked to a central network server.

Any information would be greatly appreciated!

RintyG

[zebulebu]

Welcome to the forum. To be honest, asking how much a VPN connection qould cost to set up is like the rhetorical 'how long is a piece of string' question! There are so many factors to take into consider.

However, if your company has a home working policy, then they must surely already have a VPN server that you could use (unless their policy doesn't take into account the requirement to access networked resources in the office and only allows for work to be done on laptops that can then be plugged in and uploaded when you do make it into the office)

If they already have a VPN server, then accessing resources from home could be a simple case of providing you with a network connection and an IP address to dial into a RAS server - if they go down this route then you'll probably need to be provided with a remote access token (like an RSA or SafeWord fob). These cost us around 60 quid plus a year's support. We don't use any serious endpoint control mechanisms - just disallow split tunnelling to prevent access to other networks whilst the VPN is up. Your company may have a setup like this but, unless they are trying to fob you off because they don't actually want to let you work from home (a regular occurence, believe me) then i suspect they may have all sorts of policies in place that make home working very expensive. These may include providing you with your own broadband line to use, a company-specific router that they can support, the aforementioned remote access token, paying your broadband bills and paying someone to come out to you to set it all up.

Like I said above though, without the facts, there's no way we can provide you with a definitive answer

[GiddyG]

You say the compnay policy was changed, allowing employees to apply to work from home. Do any other employees work from home and, if so, do they remotely connect into the company's servers? If so, any idea how they connect?

I would expect you to connect in exactly the same manner.

If you are the only person who has applied, or who has applied to connect remotely, that may be the stumbling block. Setting up a VPN, and mutli-factor authentication for one user would be prohibitive.

[Sparky]

As Zeb has already said it really depends on the IT policy.

For example for one customer I support it’s just a case of installing the VPN client software on the lappy (it can be a work or personal one) and then adding a user license to the firewall. Providing there is no VPN traffic restrictions in place by the ISP then that’s the job done (in most cases).

However another company I support has a more structured approach as the user has to get a broadband connection installed purely for business and also use a company laptop. This can be quite expensive so only people who *really* need to work from home get this set up.

If you don’t need to access files is using webmail an option?

[RINTYG]

Morning all!

Thanks for your replies!

I do believe that my employers are fobbing me off. I actually work for the NHS in an admin role and as far as I could find out, all hospitals are supposed to be set up to allow remote working. Like I said, I am no expert so you will probably know more about these things than me but I found a site about NHS connecting for health and another about BT N3 and both seem to say that all hospitals are supposed to be implementing VPN systems.

The problem is that I think they think I am a bit dim and won't know about these things or perhaps "the management" don't know about VPNs so won't research into it. The hospital has policies and procedures regarding homeworking and remote access but obviously they don't want anybody to do it. The only person I have found who has been able to work from home is the Web Development officer. He didn't actually ask to work from home, they asked him, but obviously it is possible to set somebody up at home. They just don't think I am worth the investment!

I think I am probably fighting a losing battle.....................