11/11/2008

Internet Protocol security (IPsec) helps make network traffic more secure by authenticating and encrypting packet exchanges in the IP transport stream. IPsec uses two methods for encryption, transport and tunnel. Tunneling mode wraps, routes, and then unwraps data packets.

Mobile Device Manager (MDM) Gateway Server uses IPsec Tunneling to communicate with and manage Windows Mobile devices outside the perimeter network and firewall of a company.

To move data more securely over a network connection that is not secure, tunneling adds new information at the start and end of each data packet. This process is known as encapsulation or wrapping.

The additional data, known as the wrapper, can have new addressing and routing information. This information helps hide the data packet from intruders who want to intercept network traffic. After the information arrives at the destination, IPsec removes the wrappers and sends the original contents to the recipient.

The tunnel is the logical path along which wrapped packets travel. Typically, the tunnel is transparent to the sending and receiving computers and appears as merely another point-to-point connection in the network path.

When you combine tunneling with data confidentiality, you can use it to create a virtual private network (VPN). The IPsec tunnel mode helps protect traffic between two IP addresses, or two IP subnets.

IPsec tunnel mode lets MDM Gateway Server administrators perform the following functions:

See Also

Concepts

Overview of MDM Gateway Server

Other Resources