SD Wan Vs VPN - A Quick Guide

To use the internet and make secure connections while doing so, people can use a virtual private network (VPN) or a secure SD Wan. Each of these primarily has the objective of providing a safe method for employees or private citizens to either use the internet more anonymously or to encrypt the data traffic to protect communications. While VPNs are far better known, SD Wan is now becoming something that businesses are considering due to its advantages and distinctive differences to VPN technology and implementation. For this article, we briefly look at both to better appreciate the differences.

What is an SD-Wan?

SD-Wan, which is short for software-defined WAN, provides a network setup intended to provide improved connectivity for users of the network. The idea behind an SD-Wan is that data requests are tracked on a per applications basis and then routed accordingly to their priority. The advantage of this is that all the available bandwidth in an office environment isn’t used by a few active, large downloads or other data-intensive activities where everyone notices that the network is suddenly crawling along.

Priorities and separate policies may be configured for each application when they’re compatible with the SD-Wan. This avoids creating data bottlenecks through network congestion. Another version of an SD-Wan is a secure SD-Wan. This includes additional encryption to make it even safer than the standard version.

What is a VPN?

A VPN is a way to connect between two points on computers, servers, or networks. An encrypted tunnel is created between two points and once the connection is established, data can be transferred between the two. A VPN manages the internet connection and sends all internet traffic through the virtual private network. Using a VPN can allow data to be sent to a secondary location and it appears that the user is using the web from another location. Companies use VPNs for a variety of reasons including remote workers, off-site employees, and others who need to access the company’s network securely.

Are There Different Use Cases for Each?

When thinking about how your business can benefit from SD-WAN, there are various ways to do so. These include providing secure communication for remote workers or avoiding a sudden slowdown in data transfers by prioritizing network traffic. By splitting out data usage between separate applications, priority usage can be given to the most important apps while others can be data restricted to avoid eating too much bandwidth at a critical time.

VPNs are harder to control from this perspective. They’re mainly a single solution for encrypting internet connections to make them more secure. However, they cannot usually manage the data by priority like with an SD-Wan.

Is One Superior to the Other?

An SD-Wan is an excellent solution to better control network data usage, reroute traffic, and still do so securely. For granular control down to the application level, SD-Wan is the better option. VPNs are still useful; however, they encrypt and tunnel all the data together, making it difficult to prioritize effectively. As a result, bottlenecks can occur. VPNs overall are easier to configure though.

While some people will be unfamiliar with SD-Wan compared to VPNs, it’s worth becoming better acquainted. In the corporate world, the former is likely to overtake the latter in the coming years as more companies realize their potential.

 

What are the Easy Ways to Create a VPN?

A VPN (Virtual Private Network) can spoof your location or give access to geo-restricted content on the internet. It keeps you safe from malicious practices and hides your original IP address by assigning you a bogus one.

Although there are commercial VPNs that can get the job of hiding your original identity done with just a single click. But if you're against VPNs that sell data to third parties, then you can go for the option of hosting your own VPN server at home with the limited resources you have in hand.

Keep on reading to know what are the easy ways to create a VPN server at home.

What Are My Options?

A VPN server can easily be hosted by using Cloud Services.

You can use your router to create a VPN server.

And if you don't have a VPN router but have a router that supports third-party firmware, just flash your router.

Create a dedicated VPN server on a device (PC or Raspberry Pi).

What Is A VPN & How Does It Work?

A VPN can hide your online identity on the internet as you surf. It makes sure that you are not vulnerable to hackers and eavesdroppers looking to exploit sensitive information (bank details, pins, passwords).

Not even your ISP or government authorities can track your traffic when you're browsing the internet with a VPN connection. 

When you connect to a VPN, a secure bridge is formed between the user and the VPN server. Whatever requests you generate, they're encrypted while traveling through that bridge until it reaches the destination page.

It can even geo-spoof your location to a different region as if you're physically accessing the internet from there.

Create a VPN On Cloud

Cloud computing is everywhere and cloud-based solutions are being utilized by leading industries in the world.

One of the easy ways to create a VPN is using cloud services. The best part is that you won't have to maintain or audit anything.

Algo VPN is the best choice if you want to create a disposable VPN solution. Other than that, Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Digital Ocean are other options for you to consider.

You may have to install some dependencies, run some commands, set your VPN profile up, and play with the access keys a little bit while setting up your VPN server.

Creating a VPN using cloud services can have its cost, but you won't have to deal with anything and there's no third party involved. 

Create a VPN On Your VPN-Enabled Router

To create a VPN using this method, you'll need a router that has VPN functionalities in it. It's just a normal router, but it has the capability to host a VPN server.

You'll have to follow some linear system-specific steps to easily create a VPN on your router.

Just visit the configuration page of your router and head to the VPN section.

You can either search for your router's manual and get help from there.

Follow the instructions and set up your own VPN server on the router.

Create a VPN By Flashing Router Firmware

This is the alternative way to create a VPN on a router if it doesn't have built-in VPN functionalities.

By flashing your router's firmware, you're simply installing a new operating system that will enable the VPN feature and you'll be able to host a VPN server on the router.

The only thing you need to check is whether your router has the compatibility to support any third-party firmware like OpenWrt or DD-WRT. Once that is confirmed, flash your router's firmware cautiously to avoid any mid-process errors.

Once the router firmware is flashed, the VPN feature will be available on your router and you can create a VPN server easily.

Create a Dedicated VPN Server

To create a dedicated VPN server, you need a device that would be running all the time.

You might need to install a third-party VPN server, like OpenVPN. You can do this on any platform (Windows, Mac, or Linux). 

You can even use a Raspberry Pi device with OpenVPN to create a lightweight and low-cost VPN server. It works fine and there would be no latency issues.

Just set up port forwarding, create a connection, allow the users you want to give access, configure the firewall settings to allow remote connection to your network, and set up a VPN connection on your PC.

You're all set to host a VPN server.

Disadvantages of Creating a VPN

Hosting your own VPN server is a good idea but there are some technical drawbacks you might want to consider.

• Poorly configuring a VPN might expose your online identity on the web if your VPN starts leaking your IP Address or DNS.
• Creating a VPN requires good internet speed. If you have bad or average internet, then hosting your VPN server might further slow down your internet connection.
• You need to update your VPN with the latest patch and maintain everything on your own.
• You won't have the choice to connect to multiple VPN servers.

You should be able to create your VPN server now. Although the wise choice would be to get a third-party VPN service so you can escape all the additional efforts of maintaining your VPN server.

 

Who is Responsible For Protecting Your Data Online?

In today’s data-driven world, there is no end to the number of individuals and organizations who are eager to get whatever data they can from you. Even the most privacy-conscious individual can quickly become overwhelmed by the onslaught of privacy-threats that we face on a near-daily basis. Knowing what someone can do with your IP address is enough to drive you crazy.

Ultimately, you need to take responsibility for the security of your own data. As we have all seen in recent years, even the biggest corporations can fall prey to data breaches. By following some simple best practices, you can massively reduce the chances of your data falling into the wrong hands.

Back-Up Your Data Often and at the First Opportunity

Many of us use cloud storage to back up our most important files, but it is important not to rely entirely on these services. Lots of online services seem like they will always be there - until they’re not. Google, for example, is one of the most popular cloud storage providers out there, but they have a long history of shutting down various services prematurely.

It’s therefore vital that you maintain your own backups of your most important data. Ideally, you should aim to keep offline backups of your most important cloud files so you aren’t entirely dependent on access to a particular service to get at them.

Set Appropriate Permissions

Whenever you hand over personal data to an online service or website, make sure that you understand exactly who is going to be able to view it. In the case of social media services and similar websites, you have a high degree of control over who has permission to access your data. If you need to send sensitive files or information to other people, consider password-protecting the files.

Reading privacy policies isn’t exactly fun for most people, but they will either give you a clear picture of how your data will be used or they will let you know that the service can’t be trusted.

If you are responsible for other people’s data, it is up to you to make sure that it is only available to those with a need to access it.

Use a VPN or Proxy

Both VPNs and proxies can significantly improve your online privacy and security, adding an extra layer of security between you and the internet. Both of these services work according to the same principle - by adding an intermediary server between the user and the website they want to connect to, it’s possible for users to both obscure their own IP address and use an IP address from a specific region.

When you normally connect to an online service, your device will hand over its IP address as part of the process of establishing a connection. By connecting via a VPN or proxy and sending all of your requests to the website via the service, you never have to directly communicate with the webserver, keeping your IP hidden.

If the server that you connect through is located in another country, you will be able to use it to browse the internet as if you are doing so from that country. This makes VPNs and proxies ideal for circumventing geo-blocking as well as obscuring your location.

Use Privacy-Focused Services

When it comes to looking after your sensitive personal data, some businesses are better than others. At one end of the spectrum, you have Facebook - a business who just can’t stop innovating when it comes to finding ways of invading your privacy. At the other, there are countless services like Mastodon that trade heavily on their reputations for maintaining user privacy and security in an open source structure.

For most common online services that you use, there will be a privacy-focused alternative. For example, instead of using Google for your online searches, you could switch to DuckDuckGo. Similarly, there is a growing number of Facebook alternatives that don’t trade their users’ data. Some of these ask users to pay instead, but others are seeking more novel approaches to making sustainable privacy-focused social media platforms.

It should be noted that no system is perfect. The only way of ensuring that your personal data can’t ever fall into the wrong hands is to never put it online, to begin with. There is always some level of risk and every time you submit personal information anywhere, there will be some kind of trade-off.

Use Ad Blockers

There are a whole host of free ad blocking add-ons available for all major internet browsers. These ad blockers do exactly what the name suggests - they prevent ads from loading on webpages. Malicious code can be embedded in online ads with relative ease. A silver lining of the highly-concentrated nature of the online advertising industry is that only a small number of providers need to be screening their ads to limit the proliferation of malicious ads.

However, malicious ads do slip through the net, especially as they become more sophisticated in nature. There will always be the occasional website or blog using custom ads, or one of the lesser-known providers. If you, or someone else on the same computer, use an out-of-date web browser that is missing recent security updates, browser exploits can be used to install keyloggers or access the file system.

You can go one step further and add the NoScript extension to your browser. This will disable all scripts and media until you add sites to your whitelist. It’s not as difficult as it sounds - when you first land on a site, you only need to click a few buttons and it will be trusted. However, if you do a lot of hopping around different websites, it will prevent scripts from executing without your permission.

Keeping your data safe online is more difficult today than it used to be, but it is still doable. Most data security is a case of common sense - as long as you remember that every piece of personal information that you hand over could potentially end up leaking and you take measures to minimize that potential, you will be safe from the most common breaches.