VPN – A cost effective alternative The need for connectivity to the company network outside of the office has increased dramatically in the past several years. As telecommuting and integration of back offices due to the acquisition of other companies become standard procedure for IT departments, there has never been a greater need for remote access to corporate data, E-mail, and applications. In the past, it was possible for companies of all sizes to make this type of visibility available to only executives and top sales people using a low end access server, several phone lines and a modem. With these executive and sales types just happy to connect for whatever reason, to copy a