A leading Hispanic cheese manufacturing company in the United States approached Future Computing Solutions, Inc. (FCSI) to connect physically remote employees to the Corporate Local Area Network in a secure fashion, commonly referred to as Remote Access VPN. Prior to a VPN install, traveling users were dialing into a modem bank in the main office, incurring long distance expenses. The fixed location-based users were mostly using local ISPs, with 56K dialups and cable modems, making them prime candidates for a VPN to allow more access to the network. The home users would gain access to the central office at higher speeds.

Once the client identified the people they needed to serve with a VPN, FCSI looked closely at their existing network environment. Every hardware and software VPN solution, no matter the protocol, is designed to package and tunnel TCP/IP packets. FCSI recently added a Cisco Pix firewall, which offered a solution as part of their Pix software bundle. The management decision to become a Cisco solutions provider running Windows NT servers narrowed the field of products to two possible configurations. If the client chose a solution based on our server types, Microsoft VPN software would be the choice. From the router/firewall perspective, the Cisco router between the Internet and the corporate network is an older model. The Microsoft VPN software was installed in a client/server model, with a Windows NT 4.0 domain controller using PPTP.

The connectivity issues raised numerous and the answers were not easy. The amount and source of bandwidth into the company was a huge discussion topic in their VPN research. The Cisco Pix firewall VPN was a functional and budgetary fit. They have experienced Cisco-trained technicians in-house and they trust it will work well in their network environment. The performance of the Pix was also acceptable on their current bandwidth, and scalable for future needs. They are still implementing some remote users, but the existing T1 circuit will handle the load they are putting on it for the next year to two years.