What is VPN and why would I want to have it?

VPN stands for Virtual Private Network.

Connecting with VPN software simply allows your computer to connect to the CW network from elsewhere.  This is particularly helpful for someone working from home or traveling offsite.  As you can imagine, being on the CW network allows one’s computer to “see” servers that are on the CW network.  Your computer cannot use applications hosted on CW servers without being on the VPN or physically being at CWF. 

Once on our network, there are many things you can do you couldn’t do before.  For example:

• Visit our Intranet site:  Intranet
• Visit our Employee Directory:  Employee Directory
• Submit requests for additional access through the Employee Directory using the My System Access button.
• Access software systems hosted here, such as Admin and Opera
• Connect to printers on our network.  If this is necessary, I suggest adding it to your computer by simply browsing our print server.  This might be useful if she is printing something next to a CW employee she works with. Add Network Printer
• Accessing Network Shares:  To be able to gain permissions to a shared folder in our network file servers, a System Access Request does need to be submitted. Submit SAR

If you still need more help and understanding about using VPN, you may submit an IT Support ticket by completing a support request at: http://itsupport.cwf.org.  This site also has a Bits and Wisdom link to look up IT How-To and Troubleshooting documents.

Special Note:

If you are at home, and you have a network connection to other devices around your home, such as a wireless printer, or an Apple TV, those will be blocked from your computer while your VPN session is connected.  This is intentional because of the nature of what a VPN is intended to do.  It is intended to keep others devices on your network to “see” the data you are privy to while on the CW network.

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