If you’ve been around the block a few times, you’re probably wondering why the title of this post isn’t, 50 Reasons VPNs Suck in the Cloud.

VPNs have long been the bane of both administrators and users (and lets not forget, support). They’re clunky, complex, and costly, and the same is true when they’re deployed to secure cloud access.

Today, VPNs are increasingly used to connect to cloud computing resources. Either by routing traffic back through the corporate network or direct to the cloud provider, VPNs offer authentication and transport-layer encryption to keep the bad guys out and sensitive information secure. But at what cost?

Both VPN configurations (corporate and provider) are complex to set up, require client agents with loads of support, and can be expensive to maintain. Arguably, there’s room for – and exists – a better approach to securing access to cloud servers …