In a message dated: Tue, 01 Feb 2000 02:41:44 +0100
Ferenc Tamas Gyurcsan said:
>Why don't you just use linux as routers? There is a VPN howto that describes
>how to set it up.
Well, I can think of a lot of reasons not to do this, especially in a
corporate/mission critical situation:
1. No support other than who ever's maintaining it.
It may work great at first, but as the load and usage increase
do you really have the time to worry about the scalability of
your homegrown solution?
2. Are you a security expert or have time to become one?
Most of the commercial offerings are as secure as you can
make a homegrown solution, but if some one breaks through the
security of your homegrown VPN and wreaks havoc with your
corporate environment or steals company secrets, at least
you have a company to sue, and you most likely still have
your job.
3. Interoperability with other non-linux systems
4. User's who have no clue how to set up they're clients
Now, I'm not saying any of these can't be refuted with valid points, but when
you're building an environment for a company, there are a lot of factors to
keep in mind, and though Linux is an awesome system, and very flexible,
robust, and secure, it's often not necessarilly the best choice for some
things, or, not the the best time for that choice.
If I were going to implement a secure, robust, corporate VPN, I'd look
seriously at the commercial offerings that also have Linux support. Why?
Well, the commercial offerings, though perhaps more costly up front, will save
you a tremendous amount of time. They've already done all the
interoperability testing to ensure that their product works with all the
systems that you need it to work with. That alone is a significant time sink,
and may well be time you don't have. Additionally, if something doesn't work
as advertised, these companies usually have Engineers that are available to
come on site and work things through with you so you don't sit there spinning
your wheels.
--
Seeya,
Paul
----
Doing something stupid always costs less (up front) than doing
something intelligent.
Bean counters are *always* wrong!
A conclusion is simply the place where you got tired of thinking.
If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right!
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