Virtual Private Network Architecture - Essay Example

Basically, the cloud computing platforms (virtual clouds), both private and public, offer an excellent framework for both all the organizations (small, medium and large) to host their applications (e.g. enterprise resource planning systems) by hiring resources on rent, on-demand and paying charging depending on actual usage. In this scenario, an organization’s IT services can be distributed all through the corporation’s data centers and systematically assigned resources in cloud data centers (Wood, Shenoy, Ramakrishnan, & Merwe, 2011; Tchifilionova, 2011).

Cloud computing allows enterprises to obtain as much computation and storage resources as they require, while only paying for the precise amount that they use. In this scenario, a VPN (virtual private network) is established by creating a secure communications link between two nodes by following the characteristics of a point-to-point private link. Additionally, a VPN can be employed by the organizations to smooth the process of secure remote access in the cloud, establish and maintain a secure data channel within a network or securely connect two networks together (Researcher's Blog, 2011; Wood, Shenoy, Gerber, Ramakrishnan, & Merwe, 2009; Rittinghouse & Ransome, 2009). . advantageous that cloud resources be flawlessly incorporated or combined with an organization’s existing architecture without the need to deal with management, handle substantial configuration, or security concerns.

On the other hand, present cloud service providers provide virtual cloud servers as remote units with their own IP address space that is beyond the reach and control of the customer. In addition, this isolation of enterprise resources and clouds augments software and configuration challenges and complexity while putting into practice the services that must communicate with an enterprise’s private network. There emerge various problems when moving an organization’s information system such as enterprise resource planning systems to a virtual cloud.

In this scenario, poor communication and lack of coordination between virtual cloud and network resources make the customer once more accountable for autonomously managing for bandwidth guarantees and traffic separation with a separate network service provider. Thus, in order to deal with these challenges, there is a need to improve the cloud computing architecture to flawlessly put together virtual private networks (VPNs) (Wood, Shenoy, Gerber, Ramakrishnan, & Merwe, 2009; Rittinghouse & Ransome, 2009).

In addition, the majority of business organizations are adopting incremental approach for the migration of their enterprise resource planning systems to virtual cloud. However, organizations that are planning to move their resources to virtual clouds must keep in mind that any migration, no matter it is associated with the cloud or not, engages one-time expenditures and a lot of opposition to migration for instance some of the staff members can be against the migration. In addition, there can be some cultural