Wondering what to do for those clients with big demands and small budgets? A Virtual Private Network (VPN) can take advantage of a company’s existing investment in internet connectivity—rather than costly additional phone lines—as a pipeline for customers, vendors and partners. And Microsoft Proxy Server delivers central network access control—making administration a snap and lowering the cost of ownership.

Finding creative ways to save your clients money without sacrificing their network’s performance ultimately translates into more money in the budget for you. And it builds enormous goodwill with your clients—which means good things for your business down the road.

Actualizing a Virtual Private Network
From the end user’s perspective, a VPN feels and functions just like a dedicated connection to a private network. The only difference is that remote users dial into a local ISP—rather than directly into the company network—and then use the Internet to establish a secure tunnel to the private network. The data is encrypted to ensure safe transmission between the remote PC and the company network.

The user experience is similar to that of a Remote Access Service (RAS) line, so there is no additional training to attend or confusing new procedures for your clients to learn. Say members of your client's sales team are on the road in Dallas or Tokyo, and need to check their e-mail back home in Chicago. With a VPN, they can simply dial into a local ISP—avoiding long-distance or international phone charges—and connect to the company network through the Internet.

A VPN reduces the need for multiple RAS lines, thus saving your clients money without jeopardizing the security of important company information or the quality of network performance. If your clients are paying $75 a month for each additional phone line connected to their network, and they have, say, eight lines, they’re paying $600 a month for dial-up access. With a VPN, they might only need one or two dedicated lines for the same level of security and service for all remote users—and they wouldn’t be paying for long distance charges to dial into their network.

Proxy at Your Service
Combining Proxy Server with a VPN gives you or your clients central control of their network. Both services use the Microsoft Windows NT® Server directory for user management, so user adds and deletes apply to both Proxy Server and VPN services, as well as file, print and other services. For example, if you delete a user, they will be deleted from both Proxy Server and from the VPN, as well as file and print services. (Note: You do not need Proxy Server to run a VPN.)

Creating a solution that takes better advantage of your clients’ existing Windows NT Server software and doesn’t require additional hardware is a smart and extremely cost-effective way to add a lot of value to their current system. It also gives you the opportunity to sell some consulting hours and strengthen your relationship with clients by building trust and goodwill.

A Penny Saved
Proxy Server saves time and money by continuously analyzing your clients’ Internet usage and then automatically caching the most often accessed sites during periods of low network traffic. It makes the intranet and internet experience faster, reduces traffic and cuts network bandwidth charges.

A VPN is an easy and cost-effective way to add a lot of value to many of your clients’ networks. It will immediately save them money by eliminating the need for extra telephone lines—an expense that can seriously cut into the budgets of most small- and medium-sized companies. For those clients with a highly mobile workforce, a VPN will also reduce their long-distance and international phone bills.

Installing a Virtual Private Network

Installing a VPN involves installing the PPTP protocol, installing the Remote Access Service and then creating and configuring a VPN adapter for RAS.

1. In the Control Panel, choose Network, select the “protocol” tab and install the Point to Point tunneling protocol.
2. Select the number of Virtual Private Networks that you would like to use. You can have a maximum of 255 RAS connections.
3. After selecting the number of VPN adapters, RAS setup will be invoked. Once installed, you need to add each of the adapters to your RAS server. Select the Add button and add each of the VPN RAS devices from the pull-down box.
4. Select OK to close the dialog box, then select Configure at the bottom of the Remote Access Setup screen to verify that the RAS Server is configured to accept connections.
5. Select the Network button at the right of the Remote Access Setup screen and configure the options there.
6. If using TCP/IP, select the Configure button and choose either to use DHCP or a static address pool for client addresses. All RAS clients will use the DNS and WINS settings that are configured on the server itself, rather than the values from DHCP.
7. Select OK to close the RAS setup screens, and reboot the server when prompted.

Note: Microsoft® Proxy Server should be installed in a dual-homed configuration, with one network card connected to the Internet and the other to the internal network.