NETGEAR Insight Business VPN connects remote workers and branch offices

NETGEAR released Insight Business VPN, an add-on service to the Orbi Pro Series of WiFi 5 (SRK 60) and WiFi 6 (SXK 80) business router mesh systems.

Insight Business VPN enables small and medium size businesses (SMBs) to extend their corporate networks to branch offices and home offices of employees while ensuring each node on the network is secured and centrally managed.

NETGEAR Insight Business VPN connects the branch offices and the work-from-home (WFH) employees to the corporate WiFi network (SSID) through an encrypted, trusted and persistent VPN connection. Insight Business VPN provides a unique combination of security and ease-of-use.

The WiFi work network in the home, preconfigured as a separate VLAN for the corporate VPN, runs separately from the home network which is on another isolated VLAN. Using the same SSID at the headquarters and at remote sites makes for an easy-to-use and secure end-user environment, while eliminating administrative complexity for the IT manager.

In addition, the NETGEAR Insight Business VPN is an ideal solution for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) who need to provision and manage multi-site, work-from-home networks for their business clients.

Easy setup for the administrator and no setup needed for the employees

The administrator configures the Business VPN on the headquarter Orbi Pro unit, and the remote units before sending them out to the employees at their homes. The Orbi Pro units at the remote and home sites, once powered on, connect the employees to the headquarters using the same corporate SSID, while performing standard Orbi Pro home router and WiFi functions.

The connection is encrypted and persistent, requires no repeated authentication, and provides the equivalent level of security and user experience as if the employee was working from a HQ location.

Existing users of SXK80 and SRK60 Orbi Pro systems can enable Insight Business VPN by downloading the latest version of firmware on the SXK80 or SRK60 systems.

“In the big shift to work-from-home, we’ve seen many challenges for the remote workforce, including security concerns and declining employee productivity levels due to unreliable access to company applications and networked systems, and storage. NETGEAR Insight Business VPN tackles these concerns with a secured and persistent connection, running on Orbi Pro, a high performance business WiFi mesh system, all the while providing an seamless experience equivalent to that of working at the headquarters,” says Douglas Cheung, Senior Product Line Manager.

Orbi Pro routers (SXR80 and SRR60) are prerequisite hardware for the establishment of a VPN tunnel, as termination end-points at both the headquarters and at the employee’s homes or branch offices. Features such as administering VPN access at a group/department level, managing VPN access for home-based-employees or branch-office locations and receiving reports and notifications on VPN performance, and more are all enabled via an easy-to-use administrator web GUI interface.