What Is “Remote Networking”?

Before discussing this problem, we need to know what networking technology is. Simply put, networking means that all devices can communicate with each other. For example, when one of your mobile phones is connected to your router, data transmission occurs between the mobile phone and the router, which is called networking. Then your router is connected to the switch through “modem” and optical fiber, which is also networking. The mobile phone, router and switch are regarded as a whole, and a tree networking mode is formed among them. According to the communication relationship between equipment nodes, network diagram of various shapes will be formed.

With regard to networking in different places, simply speaking, it is the operation of interconnecting several local area networks in different places into a large local area network. The principle is not described here, because there are great differences, such as those supported by relay servers, those directly connected, and those mixed with these two methods.

To give a simple example, you have opened many shops, the head office is in the east of the city, and there is a branch in the west. The cash register of the branch needs to be connected to the LAN server of the head office, and the gateways of the branch and the head office have no public IP. At this time, you can use off-site networking to virtualize the networks of the two places into a large LAN, and the cash register software of the branch can access the cash register server of the head office smoothly. Of course, this is only one of its applications, and we can also realize the interconnection and cooperation of video surveillance, NAS, OA or ERP in the networking environment.

With regard to the solution of this simple case, we can think of the following “remote networking” solutions:

• The first is to build your own VPN, that is, to buy your own equipment to build a VPN that belongs to you. the network requirement is to rent public ip at least on one side. besides the rental price of public IP, the price generally includes equipment and maintenance costs. maintenance requires a certain network foundation, and of course you can also find an agent.
• Mpls VPN, as long as the traffic confidentiality is not very high, is also a relatively safe and efficient private line, which is a pseudo-private line. The cost of mpls VPN is very low among operators’ private lines.
• Although the traditional private line can also transmit all kinds of traffic, mpls VPN is mainly responsible for confidential data after its emergence, which has higher security and is more reliable than mpls VPN. Of course, it is more expensive than you can imagine.
• SDN network, which is chosen by many companies now, has better confidentiality than mpls VPN, and its price is cheaper than private line. There is no restriction, and its price is similar to mpls, and its effect is fast catching up with private line. Very cost-effective.

Present Situation of “Remote Networking” of Internet of Things

There are some differences between the Internet of Things and the traditional Internet. The essence of the Internet of Things is perception and service. The data of the Internet of Things can be traded, which is of great value to big data and cloud computing. The essence of mobile Internet and Internet is to push and share online information and content based on mobile phones and PCs. Information will disappear and be recreated, which is of limited value to big data and cloud computing. There are some differences between the networking of all Internet of Things and the traditional Internet.

The client side of the Internet of Things extends and extends to any object to exchange and communicate information, that is, information between objects. The Internet of Things is widely used in the convergence of networks through communication sensing technologies such as intelligent sensing, identification technology and pervasive computing, and is therefore called the third wave of information industry development in the world after computers and the Internet. The Internet of Things is the application expansion of the Internet. It is not so much a network as a business and application. Therefore, application innovation is the core of the development of the Internet of Things, and innovation 2.0 with user experience as the core is the soul of the development of the Internet of Things.

According to the characteristics of the internet of things, the networking modes of the internet of things mainly include: “LoRa”, “ZigBee”, “WIFI”, “NB-IOT”, “Bluetooth”, “4G” and so on.

With the development of the Internet of Things, the devices and application scenarios of the Internet of Things are increasing. In order to realize the real “Internet of Everything”, we need to connect the Internet of Things devices distributed in different places, so that the information among the Internet of Things devices can interact and the Internet of Things devices can be managed in a unified way, so we must use the “off-site networking” solution.

According to the experience of traditional Internet, we can easily think that the most direct way to realize “networking in different places” is to build VPN network. The most commonly used VPNs include L2TP, IPsec, GRE, Open VPN and so on. However, it is obvious that this method is somewhat “acclimatized” in the application scenario of the Internet of Things. Mainly reflected in the following aspects:

• Complex and time-consuming; extensive IT knowledge required ；
• Public static IP address and VPN Server；
• User-to-device；
• Data center exposed in public networks, security settings required；
• Public IP and broadband fees, VPN devices in the center；
• Number of connected sites subject to VPN

In order to comply with the development, there is now a new “remote networking” solution suitable for the Internet of Things, that is, the cloud server replaces the central server of traditional VPN, so that our Internet of Things gateway and cloud server can establish VPN.

How Does the Cloud-Based VPN Solution Work

Compared with traditional VPN solution, it must have user-friendly interfaces and simple operation. It is a kind of SaaS (Software as a Service) featuring simply “plug & play”, and that builds secure remote networks for your machines (IPCs, servers, IP cameras, PLCs, HMIs, RTUs, controllers, etc.), enables you to access your devices anytime from anywhere as long as you can access the Internet, and stay connected with your business and with the world — especially in these challenging times when normal working routines have been disrupted.

• Easy deployment and configuration, little technology required；
• Fast network building with AWS cloud service；
• User-to-device and device-to-device；
• Secure deployment center and encrypted data transmission；
• No fees for network building; charged by data usage, lower investment ；
• Flexibly scalable
• Remote management of routers, firmware upgrade, configuration update; data statistics, device monitoring

Let’s see how easy it is! You just have to associate your router/gateway with your account, and then you can create multiple devices on the platform. The VPN tunnel is built already.

It’s very flexible. Users can also access all the devices under your account via OpenVPN Client.

In the example of opening a branch just mentioned, we can also use this kind of cloud platform, and connect the gateways of the head office and the branch to the cloud platform. This solution does not need to rent the public network address, and does not need to purchase additional equipment. The cost mainly lies in the traffic cost of the cloud platform, and there is no restriction, and the safety factor is relatively high. It is suitable for application scenarios with small traffic between devices and has high cost performance.