Concentrator Product Information

Cisco offers a wide range of VPN products, including routers, PIX and ASA security appliances, VPN hardware appliances (concentrators), and software and hardware clients. With this wide range of choices, Cisco provides a VPN solution that can fit any network or market. VPN implementations supported by these products include IPsec, L2TP over IPsec, PPTP, and WebVPN.

A few years back Cisco introduced a concept called "Easy VPN." Easy VPN's premise was to make it easy to set up remote access connections. When I examine the client functionality of Cisco client products throughout this book, you'll see that setting them up as clients is a very simple processthus the term "easy" in Easy VPN. Easy VPN allows administrators to deploy complicated VPN technologies without the configuration headaches associated with them.

Two components of Easy VPN are as follows:

• Easy VPN Server Products that support the server functions include the VPN 3000 concentrators, IOS routers, and PIX and ASA security appliances.
• Easy VPN Remote (sometimes referred to as Client) Products that support client functions include SOHO IOS routers, SOHO PIX firewalls, the Cisco VPN 3002 hardware client, and the Cisco VPN software client.

This chapter will focus on one set of Easy VPN components: Cisco 3000 series concentrators. Specifically, it will cover:

• Concentrator Models
• Concentrator Modules
• Concentrator Features
• Concentrator Access Introduction