Help Center/ Virtual Private Network/ Service Overview/ What Is VPN?
Updated on 2024-12-04 GMT+08:00
View PDF
Share

What Is VPN?

Overview

Virtual Private Network (VPN) establishes secure, reliable, and cost-effective encrypted connections between your on-premises network or data center and a virtual network on the cloud.

Cross-border VPN connections cannot be established between the Chinese mainland and other regions.

If cross-border VPNs are involved in Egypt, submit a service ticket first.

VPN falls into two categories: Site-to-Cloud VPN (S2C VPN) and Point-to-Cloud VPN (P2C VPN), which apply to different scenarios. S2C VPN uses the Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) protocol, and P2C VPN uses the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol.

  • S2C VPN involves three key components: VPN gateway, customer gateway, and VPN connection.
    • A VPN gateway provides an Internet egress for a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) to connect to a customer gateway in your on-premises data center.
    • A customer gateway is a resource that provides information on the console about your customer gateway device in your on-premises data center.
    • A VPN connection connects a VPN gateway to a customer gateway through encrypted tunnels, enabling communication between a VPC and your on-premises data center. This helps quickly establish a secure hybrid cloud environment.

    Figure 1 shows the S2C VPN networking.

    Figure 1 S2C VPN networking
  • P2C VPN involves three key components: VPN gateway, server, and client.
    • A VPN gateway provides an Internet egress for a VPC and is bound to a server.
    • A server encapsulates and decapsulates data packets, and defines the port, encryption algorithm, and CIDR blocks for communicating with clients. A VPN gateway functions as the server.
    • A client establishes a VPN connection with a server to remotely access cloud resources or services.

    Figure 2 shows the P2C VPN networking.

    Figure 2 P2C VPN networking

Accessing the VPN Service

You can access the VPN service through the web-based management console.

  • If you have registered an account, log in to the management console and choose Networking > Virtual Private Network to log in to the VPN console.
  • If you do not have an account, register one first by referring to "Registering a HUAWEI ID and Enabling Huawei Cloud Services" in Preparations.