Ask HN: Who gets VPN access at your company?

3 points·joshdance··3 comments

At my current company, VPN access is very hard to get. You have to ask your manager, and fill out a form, and he has to approve it, and then pass the request to systems etc etc. As a result hardly anyone has it.

How widespread is VPN access at your company? Does everyone get it, or only a select few? Also what is the size of your company? Mine is around 400 people.

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Pretty much anyone who uses a computer at my workplace has VPN access. No special approval is required. The same ID that gives you access to local network resources (printers, file servers, intranet sites, etc.) gets you on the VPN. The company has several hundred employees, and the VPN can support hundreds of users.

Aside from people whose jobs require a lot of travel (sales, etc.), only a few people work remotely on a regular basis, and some others work remotely a few days a month. But having the infrastructure to have many employees work remotely gives us the ability to keep the business going if there are transportation disruptions like blizzards, hurricanes or transit strikes.

At my last job (ClearChannel, now iHeartMedia), it took a form and approvals from my manager and several department heads including IT and HR. There were 10,000+ employees there. At my current job, we've grown from 7 to 35 since I've been here, and everyone has a VPN login, but few people use it.

There's about 20 of us in the office, and maybe 5 or so that have VPN access. If you don't need it, you dont get it.

Conversely, I used to work for a big red o, and everyone had VPN, with access cards etc.

Depends on the job/environment. Usually if you need it, you'll be granted it.

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