22-04-2010, 11:54 AM
Virtual Private Network using JAVA, J2EE
Introduction
A virtual private network (VPN) is a private data network that makes use of the public telecommunication infrastructure, maintaining privacy through the use of a tunneling protocol and security procedures. The idea of the VPN is to give the company the same capabilities at much lower cost by using the shared public infrastructure rather than a private one.
A well-designed VPN can provide great benefits for an organization. It can:
· Extend geographic connectivity.
· Improve security where data lines have not been ciphered.
· Reduce operational costs versus traditional WAN.
· Reduce transit time and transportation costs for remote users.
· Simplify network topology in certain scenarios.
· Provide global networking opportunities.
· Provide telecommuter support.
· Provide broadband networking compatibility.
· Provide faster ROI (return on investment) than traditional carrier leased/owned WAN lines.
· Show a good economy of scale.
· Scale well, when used with a public key infrastructure.
Tunneling
Tunneling is the transmission of data through a public network in such a way that routing nodes in the public network are unaware that the transmission is part of a private network. Tunneling is generally done by encapsulating the private network data and protocol information within the public network protocol data so that the tunneled data is not available to anyone examining the transmitted data frames. Tunneling allows the use of public networks (eg, the Internet), to carry data on behalf of users as though they had access to a 'private network', hence the name.
Types of VPN
Remote Access (RAS) VPN - Under this application only a single VPN gateway is involved. The other party involved in negotiating the secure communication channel with the VPN Gateway is a PC or laptops that is connected to the Internet and running VPN Client software. The VPN Client allows telecommuters and traveling users to communicate on the central network and access servers from many different locations.
Benefit : Significant cost savings by reducing the burden of long distance charges associated with dial-up access. Also helps increase productivity and peace of mind by ensuring secure network access regardless of where an employee physically is.
Site-to-Site Intranet VPN - With Intranet VPN, gateways at various physical locations within the same business negotiate a secure communication channel across the Internet known as a VPN tunnel. An example would be a network that exists in several buildings connected to a data center or mainframe that has secure access through private lines. Users from the networks on either side of the tunnel can communicate with one another as if it were a single network. These may need strong encryption and strict performance and bandwidth requirements.
Benefit : Substantial cost savings over traditional leased-line or frame relay technologies through the use of Internet to bridge potentially long distances between sites.
Site-to-Site Extranet VPN - Almost identical to Intranets, except they are meant for external business partners. As such, firewall access restrictions are used in conjunction with VPN tunnels, so that business partners are only able to gain secure access to specific data / resources, while not gaining access to private corporate information.
Benefit : Businesses enjoy the same policies as a private network, including security, QoS, manageability, and reliability.
Implementation of Remote Access (RAS) VPN
The proposed System will have two modules.
1. VPN Gateway
2. VPN client
The VPN Client is a desktop application, which is used to brows, find and transfer files through the Virtual Private Network. This application must be installed in all the machines in the networks to use the VPN. A single application in each network will act as a gateway and it will update the network information to the VPN gateway.
Each action on the client will be send through the gateway after encryption and thus the network will remain always secure. Each packet that received by the client will be passed through the authorisation process to block intruders. The responses of the network will show in the client graphically.
The VPN gateway can be developed using J2EE and the client can be developed using JAVA swing.
