Do you know about virtual private networking (VPN)? It’s one of the hottest technologies to hit the Internet since...well, since the Internet itself. VPN is a technology that turns vulnerable public-access networks into encrypted, secure pipelines suitable for channeling sensitive corporate data through the maze of nodes and routers that control the network. It’s an important development for the millions of us who use the Internet, and it’s available under V4R4 of OS/400. Why is it so important to your company? Because it can save you money!

Think about this for an instant. We all know how inexpensive access to the Internet has become. For the price of an Internet Service Provider (ISP), any AS/400 can now hook directly into the largest community of computers in the world, receive or transmit information, host a Web site, or act as an email server. Orders and customer inquiries can flow easily from anywhere on earth, adding real value to your AS/400 site and a new bottom line to your company’s investment in AS/400 technology. This all has been made possible with the e-commerce technologies that IBM has wisely brought to the AS/400 over the last few years. However, there’s always been an invisible cost to any Internet connection that has been greatly limiting use of the Internet by many AS/400 corporate users. That cost is security. Today, nearly everyone knows that when your machine is hooked to the Internet, it is exposed to potential security threats that can literally sink the enterprise.

Of course, this potential threat is why many corporations that rely on the AS/400 have been reluctant to use the Internet for sensitive mission-critical data flows. No one wants to be the victim of a hacker or a virus. In the past, this threat was one of the primary reasons that companies invested heavily in older, expensive, secure private networks. These are networks that use point-to-point SDLC and SNADS, technologies with high- priced overheads but fewer connectivity options. In fact, as the Internet phenomenon has accelerated, many companies have found themselves investing in three network strategies: public access using the Internet with firewalls, corporate-to-corporate access for mainframe and midrange connectivity, and private intranet access for routing office-to-office network

communication. This redundancy is expensive and creates a maze of conflicting pathways and standards that soak up IT dollars and resources.

That’s where virtual private networking with V4R4 comes in. VPN combines the security of a private network with the accessibility of the Internet. It does this by using a technology called Internet Protocol (IP) Tunneling, sometimes called encapsulation. With IP Tunneling, VPN encrypts every packet of data before loading it onto the Internet. This encrypted data then passes through a firewall onto the public access network, where it is routed to a receiving node of the VPN. Once delivered, the encrypted data passes through a second firewall, where it is authenticated, decrypted, and passed along to the receiving user. In theory, if any of the packets is intercepted by a hacker along the way, the embedded encryption shields the VPN from revealing information about the nature or structure of the corporate network that lies behind each firewall.

So how does VPN save money? It’s easy. By using VPN on the AS/400, we can begin to shake down all those older, more expensive private networks that chew up our time and resources. Larger organizations can start to use the Internet for more important corporate-to-corporate network functions at a lower cost. Smaller security-conscious organizations that were too cost-sensitive to invest in expensive private networks are now able to use the Internet as a backbone for secure transactions between offices. That’s what’s so exciting about VPN on the AS/400. VPN extends the legendary AS/400 security shield onto the Internet.

Of course, private networks won’t disappear: The bandwidth of the Internet may be cheap, but it’s also very limited, and rush-hour high-traffic jams will still keep it too slow for some companies. But VPN on the AS/400 opens up a whole new arena of access for most of us, allowing us to use the Internet the way it was designed to be used without fear of violation from hackers. And VPN is an extremely flexible technology, letting us establish secure networks anywhere in the world for the price of an ISP connection.

If your company has been concerned about connecting its AS/400 to the Internet for reasons of security, you’ll probably want to study what’s going on with VPN on the AS/400. It’s one of those easy-to-swallow solutions that IBM has been building right into its strategy for the AS/400’s ascent as the premier Internet platform. If you want to know more about virtual private networking in general, check out simon.cs.cornell.edu/Info/ Projects/Ensemble/vpn.html. I think you’ll agree: VPN on V4R4 will make you rethink how you use the AS/400 on the Internet.

Thomas M. Stockwell Editor in Chief

Thomas M. Stockwell is an independent IT analyst and writer. He is the former Editor in Chief of MC Press Online and Midrange Computing magazine and has over 20 years of experience as a programmer, systems engineer, IT director, industry analyst, author, speaker, consultant, and editor.  

 

Tom works from his home in the Napa Valley in California. He can be reached at ITincendiary.com.