Overview of the VPN management hierarchy
Issue 4 May 2005 23
●VPNmanager Enterprise Client. Use the Enterprise Client version for managing an
unlimited number of security gateways and VPNremote Clients.
●VPNmanager Service Provider Client. Use the Service Provider Client version to
manage an unlimited number of security gateways and VPNremote Clients. The Service
Provider also supports multiple VPN domains.
Overview of the VPN management hierarchy
With the VPNmanager software, you can configure and manage VPNs and firewalls from a
central location. By focusing on security policy instead of individual device management,
administration of large-scale networks is simplified. Central management allows you to make
configuration updates automatically to all affected security gateways. This distributed approach
also applies to firewall management.
The VPNmanager software is built on a policy-based architecture that allows the administrator
to start at a high-level with a VPN domain, then move down the hierarchy to create user groups,
IP groups for protected resources, and security groups that define membership and policies of
the VPN.
Figure 1: Domain hierarchy
At the peak of the hierarchy is the VPN domain. A domain is assigned a name to identify it from
other domains. Usually one domain is configured for an entire organization. A domain is built of
one or more VPNs.
Each VPN is built of users, user groups and IP groups. VPNs are assigned names. These
names can associate the VPN to a regional location or purpose.
Users are the individual remote access users who log in to the VPN through a security gateway.
The VPNremote Client software is used to connect to the VPN services.
A User Group contains or organizes user accounts. These accounts are assigned to remote
VPN members who dial in to the network and run VPNremote Client software to access the
VPN.