What Is A VPN Concentrator? (When Do You Need One?)

A VPN concentrator is a specialized device that enables users in multiple remote locations to securely connect to the company’s internal network. It is like the control center for your network’s VPN connections that ensures everyone can access what they need, no matter where they are, without compromising security.

VPN concentrators can manage hundreds of parallel VPN tunnels simultaneously. They come with advanced functionalities that are essential for modern corporate networks. Features like identity obfuscation, load balancing, and application access management enhance network security and usability.

How do VPN concentrators work?

VPN concentrators are used to protect communications between remote employees, branches, vendors, or clients and the central corporate network. They use advanced encryption and authentication methods to keep data safe. Much more robust than a standard VPN router, they are designed to manage thousands of simultaneous connections.

Without a VPN concentrator, setting up secure, encrypted tunnels for multiple users would be a logistical nightmare. But with one, it’s seamless. The device authenticates each user, encrypts the data, and sends it through a secure tunnel back to the company network. All this happens in real time.

VPN concentrators can also handle load balancing. They can distribute network traffic evenly across multiple servers. So, if one server gets overloaded, the VPN concentrator redirects the traffic to another, ensuring smooth and uninterrupted access. This is crucial for maintaining performance, especially when you have a large number of users connecting at once.

Benefits of using a VPN concentrator in corporate networks

Enhances security

With the rise of remote work, safeguarding our data becomes more critical. A VPN concentrator ensures that only verified employees gain access to your network, meaning unauthorized users have no entry point. This shields your sensitive information from prying eyes. 

Public networks in particular are a potential minefield for hackers. However, with a VPN concentrator in place, your data travels through an encrypted tunnel. This encryption protects everything, from emails to proprietary documents, ensuring that even if someone tries to intercept the data, they can’t read it.

Another layer of security comes from traffic encryption, also known as hypertext transfer protocol secure (HTTPS). HTTPS establishes multiple encrypted tunnels that protect data as it moves from website to website. This means your communications remain private and confidential. 

A VPN concentrator also adds IP address assignment functionality to your network security apparatus. This function is crucial for secure remote access to your cloud systems. By assigning IP addresses to users, you can implement IP whitelisting, which adds yet another layer of defense, ensuring that only authorized IP addresses can access critical systems.

Network segmentation through a VPN concentrator also limits potential damage from breaches. Segmenting the network and assigning privileges prevents attackers from moving freely across the network. If an unauthorized individual gains access, their movement is restricted to a specific segment, minimizing potential harm.

Moreover, modern VPN concentrators can manage application access effectively. They establish private tunnels between remote users and SaaS applications. This secures the data and ensures the application’s performance isn't compromised.

Deploying a VPN concentrator transforms your security posture, making your network more resilient against various threats. It establishes a robust barrier, safeguarding your data from interception and ensuring that your remote operations run smoothly and securely.

Centralizes VPN management

A VPN concentrator acts as a hub for multiple VPN connections. It establishes multiple encrypted tunnels simultaneously. This approach is ideal for businesses with a vast number of remote workers. Instead of each employee connecting individually, the VPN concentrator handles these connections efficiently. 

By allowing easier central management of secure connections, VPN concentrators simplify the task of maintaining and monitoring the network. This means your IT team can efficiently manage user access, monitor network activity, and quickly address any issues that arise.

VPN concentrators can manage multiple connections seamlessly. They authenticate users, encrypt and decrypt data, and provide new IP addresses as required. This ensures that all communication is secure and private. 

In a global enterprise with offices in different countries, employees need constant, secure access to the central server. A VPN concentrator placed next to the firewall will establish secure tunnels for each connection. This setup ensures security and enhances performance by managing traffic loads effectively.

Makes it easier to scale the corporate network

Hardware VPN concentrators are designed to handle high workloads.  One device can manage hundreds of parallel VPN tunnels without breaking a sweat. 

However, even the best ones will start to struggle as you add more users. They work great in stable environments that don't expect huge changes in user numbers. The solution once they start to struggle is to upgrade with virtual VPN concentrators that can scale more flexibly. 

Virtual VPN concentrators provide the adaptability that dynamic, growing companies need to keep everything running smoothly, allowing you to focus on your business rather than your bandwidth. These virtual machines operate in the cloud and can adapt to your changing needs more seamlessly. 

For example, if you're using a business cloud VPN, you can scale up as you go. You pay for the performance you need, and if your requirements spike, the virtual concentrator can handle it without you having to invest in more hardware.

Still, it’s essential to understand that managing a growing number of connections isn't just about throwing more hardware or virtual machines at the problem. It requires proper configuration and sometimes even reconfiguration of your entire network setup. 

This is why a VPN concentrator, while powerful, might not always be the best fit for rapidly growing businesses that can't afford to hit performance ceilings or deal with complex setups. Opting for a cloud-delivered solution could offer you the scalability with less hassle.

Boosts network redundancy

Network redundancy is all about ensuring there’s no single point of failure in your network. It seeks to prevent any downtime, ensuring your network is resilient and robust. This way, you stay connected, no matter what happens.

To achieve high availability and redundancy, VPN concentrators can be configured in a failover arrangement, with a primary concentrator and a secondary one that’s always on standby. If the primary VPN concentrator fails, the secondary one kicks in instantly.

Load balancing, where you divide traffic across multiple VPN concentrators, is another method you might employ. This not only ensures redundancy but also optimizes the performance. By balancing the load, you prevent any single concentrator from becoming a bottleneck, thus improving your overall network reliability.

There is also geographic redundancy to consider. This is when an entire site goes down due to a disaster. Placing VPN concentrators in multiple locations ensures that even if one site is compromised, your users can still connect securely through another site.

Setting up monitoring tools and automated alerts so you can continuously monitor the health of your VPN concentrators is also crucial. If something goes wrong, you are instantly notified. This allows you to take quick action and switch to backup systems seamlessly.

Types of VPN concentrators

Hardware-based VPN concentrators

Hardware-based VPN concentrators are dedicated, physical devices specifically designed for managing secure connections. These robust, enterprise-grade machines handle large numbers of simultaneous internet connections, making them ideal for big organizations with extensive remote workforces. 

The main advantage of hardware-based VPN concentrators is their reliability. Since they are dedicated solely to managing VPN connections, they offer high performance and stability. But they come with a hefty price tag and need skilled IT personnel for setup and maintenance.

However, hardware-based VPN concentrators can become a bottleneck. If your remote workforce grows, you could hit bandwidth limits. This will entail investing in more devices, adding to costs and complexity. 

Despite these challenges, the robustness and security features of hardware VPN concentrators often make them the go-to choice for large enterprises seeking top-notch VPN solutions.

Software-based VPN concentrators

Unlike traditional hardware VPN concentrators, software-based VPN concentrators work entirely on virtual machines (VMs). They can be implemented as software-only solutions or downloaded to operate on bare-metal customer premise equipment (CPE).

Software-based concentrators are indispensable for large-scale deployments with multiple locations. They can handle high workloads seamlessly and offer the same functionality as their hardware counterparts but with the added advantages of scalability and remote management.

When you combine software-based VPN concentrators with cloud-based orchestration, you get touch-free, automated service deployment and activation. This means no more on-site configurations or manual updates. Everything happens through the cloud, making it quicker and more reliable.

Combining VPN concentrators with standard VPN solutions

Cloud-based VPNs

Moving to the cloud can simplify VPN deployment and scaling. Cloud-based VPNs are more flexible, too. You don't have to worry about maintaining physical hardware or dealing with the intricacies of constant updates. 

Take AWS VPN for instance. It offers a managed VPN service that lets you easily create a secure connection between your on-premises network and your AWS infrastructure. All you need is an internet connection. AWS takes care of the heavy lifting, including high availability and scaling.

Cloud-based VPN solutions offer a convenient, scalable, and secure way to connect your enterprise network. Combined with a virtual VPN concentrator, they take the complexity out of the equation, so you can focus on what matters: growing your business.

Remote access VPNs

In today's hybrid work environment, secure remote access is more critical than ever. Many people work from home or on the go, which opens up a variety of cybersecurity challenges. That's where a remote access VPN combined with a VPN concentrator can be handy.

Imagine you’re a remote worker needing access to sensitive company data. Without a secure connection, you expose that data to potential threats when you connect to the internet. This is where a remote access VPN shines, creating an encrypted tunnel between your device and the company’s network, ensuring that your data travels safely across the web.

Now, the VPN concentrator is the backbone of this secure setup. It can manage all the connections simultaneously and from a central dashboard, making sure each user has a secure link to the corporate network.

The beauty of combining remote access VPNs with a VPN concentrator lies in the robust security and ease of management the latter provides. You get secure, encrypted connections, centralized control, and authentication for users. This setup simplifies the IT team’s workload and gives you peace of mind knowing that the company’s data is secure, no matter where your employees work from.

Site-to-site VPNs

A Site-to-site VPN establishes secure, encrypted connections between different networks, effectively making them part of one giant virtual network. It is especially useful for companies with multiple offices that need to access the same internal resources and databases.

While a site-to-site VPN is great for connecting multiple offices, a VPN concentrator is more focused on managing individual user connections. A VPN concentrator works like a supercharged router that not only handles the traffic but also ensures each connection is encrypted and secure.

Using both a site-to-site VPN and a VPN concentrator creates a comprehensive network solution. While the site-to-site VPN connects different office locations, the VPN concentrator ensures that remote workers have secure access to the corporate network. This combination helps maintain a seamless and secure communication channel across the entire organization.

Extranet VPNs

An extranet VPN connects resources between multiple enterprises. It's a private network that a company can use to share part of its information or operations with suppliers, partners, or other businesses.

The VPN concentrator in an extranet setup ensures that all the communication between the companies remains encrypted and secure. It handles multiple encrypted tunnels simultaneously, crucial for maintaining performance and security for large-scale collaborations. 

The VPN concentrator also helps in user authentication, ensuring that only authorized personnel from each company can access specific resources. This means that even if an employee from a partner company tries to access sensitive areas without the right permissions, they are blocked by the concentrator.