VPN and tunnels

[veena_kompal]

I do have fair knowledge about VPN. But am a bit confused about what exactly the difference between VPN and tunnels?

[dominic.caron]

A tunnel is a link between two point. It can be a GRE tunnel (unencrypted) or a VPN tunnel(encrypted) or ... anything that create Point-2-Point link over a public network.

A VPN a create private network over a public network usually with encryption. To use encryption, you need to create tunnels( encrypt in one point, decrypt at the other). You can also have un-encrypted VPN. With MPLS-VPN, you create private network using tagging over you enterprise or service provider network.

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[veena_kompal]

Thanks for the relpy. So does this mean IPsec tunnel and VPN tunnel is one and the same?

[dominic.caron]

No,

IPsec tunnel is one kind of VPN tunnel. IPsec is only the encryption technology used.

You can have SSL tunnel and PPTP tunnel...those can also be called VPN.