To: Bonnie Temple: You have had a lot to digest as all of us "network gods" blow off about what we seem to know. Simply put when considering Frame Relay vs. VPN... is this; Frame transport will cost you more, is more reliable and requires less equipment and management at about a 2 to 1 ratio (for a comparable service) VPN has less expensive transport, more hardware costs and has more management costs. Estimate about 1/2 the comparable cost to Frame. I could easily give you an exact price for either within fifteen minutes of a conversation. Contact me if interested. Best Regards, Jonathan Goetsch ComIT Solutions, Inc. 4540 Campus Drive Newport Beach, CA 92660 949-252-5351 Office 323-953-8695 VO 714-366-5351 Cell 323-953-8693 Fax [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.comIT.org Member; Board of Directors, www.aipoc.org "... Envision a network... that really works" -----Original Message----- From: Jeff Miller [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2001 6:39 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: VPN True, but tell that to the already overworked admin trying to work the bugs out of a system that if it were frame, would just run. It all depends on the solution you implement I suppose, and I've only played with one (name withheld to protect the guilty) and it was nothing but trouble for me. It was a software based solution, and it was hosted on the same server as the software based firewall. On an almost daily basis it would stop working for no good reason, and most times I had to reboot the server to get it back. The mfr kept sending be field service packs (read "beta") and those would break new things.... -----Original Message----- From: Pradeep Kumar [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2001 11:34 AM To: Jeff Miller; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: VPN I beg to differ here. VPN is no rocket science -----Original Message----- From: Jeff Miller [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Sunday, September 09, 2001 3:43 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: VPN Do you mean the difference between using a VPN over the internet and a private F/R-T1 between two offices? Your statement that VPN is marketed as cheaper and more reliable than frame relay throws me. I haven't heard anybody yet say that VPN over the internet is more reliable than frame relay. Fact is, it's not. If you have any time sensitive applications that can't handle latency (video, VOIP, SNA) using that link, it just won't work with a VPN. The main problem is that you are putting yourself at the mercy of whatever virus/worm/outage is going on on the internet. You can't control what hops your traffic is taking, or what ISP peering points you are going over. The exception to that is if you sign up with a single ISP who happens to have a network access point in each of your locations. Most times this isn't possible. But even if you do find an ISP with a presence in all your locations, you have to make sure that their network is actually contiguous, and that they own or have exclusive access to their backbone between your sites. If they're sharing a link with other traffic, it's the same thing as having different ISP's. With a VPN, you still have to drop an internet connection in to your sites. Most folks are using DSL these days, but I have heard more bad stories than good about their satisfaction levels. VPN is also more complex. If you don't have the in house expertise to set it up and maintain it, you're going to add some real costs for the consultants you bring in. Your solution may require you to set up a PKI, and that isn't for the faint of heart. Frame relay is much more reliable It is more expensive in terms of the monthly recurring charges but over time, you might find that you're saving money over what you would have paid to maintain and support a VPN. Not to mention the headaches avoided.... -----Original Message----- From: Mark Ng [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2001 3:57 AM To: 'bonnie temple'; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: VPN Uhhh.. VPN and frame relay are completely different technologies, since they do very different things, you can't really compare them. > On a similar VPN topic, does anyone have experience with a > VPN versus a > single T1 used for data and voice? > Isn't the split use T1 preferable in all functional ways, provided > cancelling of rolling phone lines makes it cost effective. > > I know VPN is marketed as cheaper and more reliable than frame relay, > but have any of you found that to be true in real life? > I am leaning towards going from frame relay to the T1 > data/voice opposed > to VPN. >