Tunneling
Table of contents
What is tunneling?
Tunneling is a way to secure data between 2 end-points (servers). It creates a virtual tunnel between the 2 servers and encrypts everything within that tunnel. Data can then be transferred between those 2 servers with confidence because it is hidden from the rest of the network.
Tunneling can be configured to specifically transport only specific types of data and only between 2 specific servers. This allows you to encrypt only what needs to be encrypted without putting too much overhead on your network.
What is the purpose of tunneling?
The obvious purpose of tunneling is encryption and security. The reason you would want to do this for specific services is because some protocols communicate confidential data and that data can be viewed over the network.
Why not just use a VPN?
VPNs are a great way to tunnel data, however they use a lot more overhead and complexity which is unneeded when you only need a few specific services encrypted. This is one of the nice benefits of tunneling, you can enable it on a per-service and per-server level.
