Boost your network security with a Virtual Private Network (VPN)

Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) are designed to protect your network traffic from cybercriminals, those shady characters waiting for a chance to steal sensitive data or intellectual property — or simply wreak havoc. VPNs and their protection come in a couple of flavors. To understand the differences, consider the following analogy.

Internet-based VPN

Imagine that you’re a bank trying to move money between locations. You wouldn’t toss it in the back of a pickup truck; you would use an armored truck for traveling across public streets. In this example, money represents your network traffic, the armored truck represents encryption, and the public street represents the public internet. An internet-based VPN establishes encrypted connections for your data to travel through to provide greater privacy and security.

MPLS or network-based VPN

Now imagine you’re the same bank, but you have a series of hidden underground passages. You no longer need an armored truck. You can use a cart to wheel money through the unknown or unreachable passages.

AT&T VPN is a network-based VPN, also known as a Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) VPN. Rather than your network running across the internet, it runs across the AT&T Global Network, which reaches more than 195 countries. Since AT&T VPN doesn’t run on the internet, cybercriminals can’t find AT&T VPN endpoints. This makes AT&T VPN inherently more secure than the internet without requiring any encryption or tunneling. This also helps protect sites inherently from Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks and spoofing.

When you order AT&T VPN, you’ll get access to a wide range of available port speeds.  AT&T VPN comes with six classes of service (CoS), so you can optimize performance of applications such as web traffic, email, video, voice, and cloud applications.

You’ll also be able to create multiple VPNs. Let’s say your small business houses marketing, sales, human resources, and other departments in the same location but needs to keep data separated among those groups. You can order a single AT&T VPN connection and create a unique VPN for each department.

Finally, you can manage your services from Business Center, our award-winning, online, self-serve customer portal. It provides access to reports on performance and use, allowing you to monitor your network and make informed decisions on CoS traffic allocation and network usage. Dynamically make changes to your network 24/7. Port speed, Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) IP, or CoS changes can be completed in near-real time, so you can move at the pace your business requires—simple and fast.

In today’s networking environment, there’s no such thing as one size fits all. That’s why you have the option of seamlessly integrating AT&T VPN with SD-WAN and many private or public cloud solutions. AT&T VPN provides a highly dependable network to make SD-WANs perform better and more consistently.

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Are you a small-to-medium business wanting to better support your workforce, customers, and locations? Contact us today. We have professionals who can demystify the technology for you and get you up and running with emerging technology and other solutions for your business.

AT&T Business is here to help small businesses in a big way. Our Tech Demystified series can help you decide what products and services will work best for your business. To learn more, visit AT&T Virtual Private Network (VPN) or contact your local sales representative.