Virtual Private Networks for Dummies offers you a no-nonsense, practical guide to evaluating your company's need for a VPN, understanding what it takes to implement one, and undertaking the challenging quest to set it up, make it work, and keep it safe. Whether you're the resident expert leading the project team, or you just want to learn what makes e-commerce tick, this detailed, from-the-ground-up guide will soon have you comfortably conceptualizing:

• Security goals and strategies
• The evolution of VPNs
• Privacy in VPNs
• Extranets
• Remote-Access VPNs
• Funding
• Custom network solutions design
• Testing VPNs
• And more

With new products and technologies offering supposedly revolutionary solutions to IT departments every day, this book focuses on the real world - you know, the one full of obstacles, mishaps, threats, delays, and errors - and gives you the background knowledge to make decisions for yourself about your VPN needs. Written with a dash of humor, Virtual Private Networks for Dummies contains both technical detail (standards, protocols, etc.) and more general concepts (such as conducting cost-benefit analyses). This clear, authoritative guide will have you securely and cost-effectively networking over the Internet in no time.