Introduction
Today’s trends show us that our teams are becoming increasingly distributed, remote, and physically disconnected from the office.
In an office environment, teams can easily communicate with each other using common items like conference rooms, whiteboards, and most importantly, a Local Area Network (LAN). LANs are important pieces of technology in that they place every device on a common IP subnet which makes access between devices simple and easy. Conversely, as our teams work from home, travel, or are otherwise not on a LAN, simple communication becomes much harder, and this is where Big Network’s Secure Networking for Teams can help.
The Problem
Bob and Alice are website developers. For years they have worked in an office together where their laptops are on a common LAN.
Bob and Alice could easily collaborate reviewing each other’s work hosted on their laptops just by tying in the other person’s IP address. Alice could easily view the Django, React, or HTML applications Bob developed on his laptop just by typing in his IP address.
Bob is working remotely. The Internet now separates Alice and Bob.
There are firewalls, Network Address Translation (NATs), and proxy servers in the path. No longer is it as simple as putting a LAN IP address into a browser. Bob might need to open his firewall rules, port forward through a NAT, or configure a reverse proxy server! All of these actions open a service to the Internet, one that is under development, and might expose a security flaw. Bob could try to password protect the application, but that doesn’t protect against other security issues, and we all know that passwords are problematic.
Our Solution:
Secure Networking for Teams
Secure Networking for Teams
Big Network’s Secure Networking for Teams can bring back the concept of the LAN to a distributed team. Big Network’s unique networking technology allows teams to connect in a physically remote fashion, but logically as they are on the same LAN. Here’s how to enable this:
- Bob configures a Cloud Network. He reserves a range of Private RFC1918 IP Space for his Cloud Network.
- He invites Alice to join his Cloud Network by email address.
- Bob and Alice install Big Apps on their devices; support for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android are all available.
- Bob and Alice join the Cloud Network, and voila, they are directly connected with a fully-meshed network with direct access to each other’s laptops, just like they were in the office!
Bob and Alice can extend their network to other devices, such as their mobile phones, by simply logging into the Big App.
They can extend their network to other co-workers by inviting their email addresses to join the Cloud Network.Every device that joins the Cloud Network does so in a fully-meshed, peer to peer, fully-encrypted fashion. If you’re curious about what happens behind the scenes, have a look at Big Network’s TECH PRIMER to learn more.
Conclusion
Big Network’s Secure Networking for Teams is a quick way to remotely connect distributed workforces, as though they were on the same LAN. By using our technology, network and system administrators, developers, and even home users can create Internet wide private networks that they are in full control of.
