So let's talk a little bit about the infrastructure
requirements for an Always On VPN solution.
To begin, we need a VPN server.
Here in this course, we're going to focus on the Microsoft stack exclusively,
so we're going to be using Windows Server and the
Routing and Remote Access Service, or RRAS,
role.
However, as I had mentioned before, Always On VPN is infrastructure independent.
It's actually implemented entirely on the client or on the endpoint.
With that, you can use a variety of VPN servers,
for example, Cisco, Palo Alto, Check Point,
SonicWall, Fortinet.
There's a variety of VPN servers that you could leverage on the
back end to support Always On VPN connections.
For authentication, we will need a RADIUS server,
and again, we're going to focus on the Microsoft stack in this course,
so we're going to be looking at Windows Server and the Network Policy Server,
or NPS, role, but again, being infrastructure independent,
you can use a variety of RADIUS servers,
including Cisco ISE, Pulse Secure, Steel‑Belted Radius,
FreeRADIUS.
There's a variety of RADIUS solutions out there that can be leveraged to
support authentication for an Always On VPN infrastructure.
The client requirements to support Always On VPN are fairly straightforward.
It works with Windows 10 or Windows 11 and both
Professional and Enterprise edition, and yes,
Education is also supported.
Domain join, as I'd mentioned before, is optional,
but you can join your endpoints to an on‑premises Active Directory if you wish.
Always On VPN does support hybrid Azure AD join. Hybrid Azure AD
joint is where the client is joined both to the on‑premises Active
Directory and Azure AD. This is accomplished via synchronizing the
computer account from the on‑premises AD to Azure AD using the Azure
AD Connect service.
And finally, native Azure AD join is supported as well.
The advantage of using hybrid Azure AD or native Azure AD means
that in terms of management, you can now support Microsoft
Endpoint Manager or Intune for provisioning, which is going to be the preferred method of managing our clients.