Is VPN the answer?

[archerthedog]

Total newbie to this so please be gentle with me!!
Problem: 2 small factory units 10km apart, 1 designs the product, the other manufactures it. The manufacturing unit require rapid access to large CAD files without having to physically collect them on portable storage from other site. We are talking 4/5 PC's max, Is VPN the best solution? or are we overlooking better alternatives?
Any advice much appreciated.

 

[lgarner]

For that distance, a point-point circuit might actually be cheaper, unless both sites already have good Internet connections.

 

[JOAMON]

What you could do is have a T1 between sites and the site that uses the internet the most would then have T1 or better to the internet which would then be the default route to the internet for both sites. If T1 is not fast enough then another possibility would be two T1 lines between sites bonded together for a 3 meg pipe on a multilink connection. If one T1 circuit goes down your connection stays up but with reduced speed. T1 point to point would be a little less expensive than two internet connections and your data would pass through without all of the VPN encryption. ADSL and Cable internet not reliable enough for production environments and support for them is generally ok but dedicated T1 support is usually 24/7 and quick.

Good Luck with this

 

[archerthedog]

Thanks for advice folks. Apologies for the delay in replying as I've been away for a few days holiday.We're a bit limited here in the UK as to options available, coupled with the fact were in a semi-rural area.
Cheers.

 

[JOAMON]

Heres a radical idea...
If you have line of sight to each facility put in directional antennas and go wireless. Setup two access points as bridges to connect the sites.

 

[TimRegester]

In the UK there are several options. Even in most semi-rural areas ADSL is now available where merely a year ago it was not so using ADSL links for the VPNs is one option to go down. Get the unlimited Business ADSL solution as it has far better contention ratios, support and reliability. As I read it you are not looking at continuous data merely occasional file transfer.

T1 is called kilostream/n by BT, it is a number of channels of 64kbps that can be bonded together up to 2Mbps or thereabouts. If both sites are off the same exchange, i.e. they both have the same STD code then this might be a viable option as you need merely have what are called to local ends, if not you need a main link as well, in practice the main link is what costs money. see below.

siteA -------- exchangeA=======exchangeB---------site B
where ---- is the local end and ==== is the main link. so if exchangeA is the same exchange as exchangeB the cost is greatly reduced.

Speak to you telecoms supplier or call BT sales for prices.

Wireless broadband is another possibility but with the amount of rain, trees and density in the UK I sincerely doubt it would work that well and would need VPN for security. It is maybe worth looking into.

Good luck post back if you need more specific advice.

 

[TimRegester]

Further to my above post, kilostream N is no longer available above 960Kbps so the standard leased line would be Megastream 1 but various newer options are available. such as fibre links, MPLS links and others. This really is worth a call to BT, do not just speak to a sales person though, they have a habit of misadvising people due to lack of technical knowledge, what you want is someone who understands the engineering and will pick the correct option, they used to be called systems engineers.

There may be other telecoms providers who do services in your region, but this does vary a lot.

 

[archerthedog]

Thanks for the advice everyone. BT engineers coming 0ut to assess the business needs, this is large file transfer on a daily basis but not continuous data transmission, so reliable adsl or sdsl could be the answer.

Cheers

Keith

 

[chuka]

Make sure to protect the data stream.
VPN will be a great solution.

You can go with openvpn, great free product and creat a secure tunnel.

 

[AUSIPO]

First i would look at what type of connection you want to use, I would recomend some wirless connection and two high gain directional antennas. Make sure you have clear line of site between them. I wold also use two wirless access points one at each end and recomend ADSL or higher because it's alot of data to be transfered.