atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums VOIP Phones & IP PBX Networking Point to Point VPN

Security is a kinda sore issue with me, so sorry again for being a bit forceful.
Maybe I should give an example of what's actually out there in computerland
web page
Everything listed on this page is a security vulnerability.

Jeff I was actually looking at hamachi tonight. What are your thoughts on it so far?? Im still learning this stuff as well and was curious if that was a program that I could use to connect to a phone system and run a ip softphone thru the program. Any ideas?

Also MacOsx just a thought. Have you thought about just putting the phone system on the customers network, taking over a computer on site via logmein or something and just going thru that??

haha I drug up another old post! my bad guys couldnt sleep so going thru the site!

You'd asked about brands.

We have an extensive VPN hub and spoke network. We can access every client's location via VPN and we configure everything remotely.

For our systems we use Sonicwall. We also use the Sonicwall Global VPN client on all our laptops so if we're out of the office and have to stop by a WiFi hotspot to fix someone's problem we can create a VPN tunnel from pretty much anywhere.

Yes and we have done that at very few sites, because we don't want to install our admin software on site usually.

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Exactly what I'm looking for! Can you PM me ballpark costs of integration? (i.e. - cost per user (laptop/desktop/home pc/etc.) and cost per hardware unit). I don't need exacts, just enough to get an idea.

Thanks!

I guess it all depends on what you have going. For my small end customers, I throw in a netgear fvs114. They can be found cheap, refurb. Only reason is because they had a major software flaw that can be corrected by flashing to the current level. Throw one at each end, set up the vpn, alls good.

Also, you can get the netscreen vpn client free from Sprint's site to allow client side connectivity.

JMHO YMMV

Tony we also run gateway antivirus from the boxes as well so that things get caught at the Sonicwall instead of making it to the workstations and servers. We're renewing several of those subscriptions this week, so I'll pull some numbers for you when I get to the office.

Tony it looks like the boxes have run $300-400 on up depending on how many nodes were needed. Those are the TZ-170s. A few locations are running TZ-170 Wireless units for guest WiFi as well, and there are still a couple of clients utilizing the old Sonicwall Soho3's. It looks like a few more are already running the next generation box, but the 170s are still readily available and a very good unit.

Once you register the units, you get a mysonicwall.com login and you can download the Global VPN Client software for free. I even have it on an Ipaq PDA from back when I was doing a lot of the tech work just in case I had to fix a problem at a client's location while I was the mall or something. Once you connect via the GVPN Client, you'll get a private IP address from that location's LAN and you can ping around the network and do whatever you need. For the phone switches we have a dedicated workstation just for us that's hooked to the phone system as well as other things we monitor.

We have each client's location set up on a different subnet so if I'm setting at my desk and I try to ping 192.168.1.x, the packet routes automatically to that client's LAN. Using our administrative login, I can even access client 1's LAN from client 2's offices. It uses the hub and spoke system so the packet runs back down the line to our NOC (the hub), and then out the spoke to that client.

It's not uncommon for us to go all year and never set foot on a client's site.

That is EXACTLY what I am looking at learning/integrating. Thank you so much for that wonderful explanation! I will do some research on it and get back to you with questions/comments... (you are now my official go-to Sonicwall FAQ rep!).
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NP Tony. Let me know if I can help. :toast: