VPN Endpoints

[cableguy]

I was just wondering about what a VPN endpoint is exactly and how they work. I've been looking through the specs of different routers and a few advertise this but all seem to advertise VPN support.

My experience is with an old Linksys router and using the VPN client in windows98 to connect to the office. I'm guessing this router is using what is called as "passthrough" in the specs of todays routers.

Some of my questions-
-Are endpoints just hardware assisted VPN connections?
-Do you no longer need software or need special software for these then?
-Is this connection always "on" once configured while your router is on?
-If a router advertises 2 VPN endpoints does this mean you can have 2 vpn connections open from your inside network to others or is this just for serving 2 vpn connections from your network?
-Would there be any advantages over my old setup to one with a VP endpoint router?

 

[mboy]

Endpoints are where the vpn's terminate.
Instead of your vpn client passing thru a router and terminating on a win98 Pc or whatever u had, the connection goes from VPN endpoint device to VPN endoint device. This will allow you to tunnel between 2 seperate networks that are behind the router/firewall/vpn device as opposed to just tuneling in to a specific computer or server.

For example. I have a Sonic Wall soho (webramp 700) at home and a Sonicwall Pro 200 at work.

Both are the VPN endpoints.

I can use XP Pro's remote connection to connect to my work PC from my home PC thru the tunnel and using the LAN Ip of my work computer. I can access any of my Pc's at home from work and any of the computers @ work thru the encrypted tunnel from home.

To answer some of your questions directly:

Usually a higher end VPN endpoint type device (firewall for example) will have hardware assist in decrypting the encryption allowing for faster thruput. The tunnels is always on if you chose to keep it that way. The linksys router with passthru just allows IPsec traffic to pass thru it. If you are the boss, I would reco going with 2 VPN endpoints to your office as it will be more secure (using 3DES).
Check out the old hotdeals posts on the webramp 700's deals. You could probably get 2 of them set up easily for a total of $150 or so which is DIRT cheap.
It is possible to connect to a hardware endpoint using client software for sure, but I prefer 2 endpoints myself.

Hope this helps. I am no expert so I am sure others can chime in and give u a deeper explanation.