Download 017-015 BEAM VPN vs SSL Brochure no bleed.indd

VIRTUAL PRIVATE NETWORKS (VPN) ARE
NO MATCH FOR BEAM’S POINT-TO-POINT (P2P)
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About OneMedNet | Founded in 2009, OneMedNet set forward on a journey to create safer and more
intelligent care solutions for patients, providers & hospitals. The company has been solely focused on creating
solutions that simplify digital medical image management, exchange and sharing.
VPN’s have widespread usage across many applications and
sectors. In simplest terms, a VPN stretches a private network
NETWORK MANAGEMENT COSTS
across a public network for data exchange. By doing so, it
offers improved security when compared to solely using the
public internet. However, for the purposes of clinical image
exchange there are a number of disadvantages to relying on a
VPN for DICOM image sharing.
The BEAM P2P image sharing solution takes a different and far
better approach. BEAM leverages SSL (Secure Sockets Layer)
which is the standard security technology for ensuring an
encrypted link between a web server and browser. SSL is used
by millions of websites to protect online transactions.
VPNs require a significant amount of
human and financial resources to setup and
maintain. Here are several of the resource
challenges:
1. Network equipment (e.g. firewalls,
routers, switches – if needed) must be
purchased, installed, configured, and
maintained.
2. VPN security keys must be agreed upon,
managed, and regularly rotated.
3. Network address conflicts must be resolved
via complex arrangements such as NAT’ting
over VPN
4. When one side makes a network change, it
can render the VPN unusable and require
both sides to engage and fix it.
BEAM eliminates the need for all of this setup and
on-going maintenance by elegantly handling all
traffic routing and configuration automatically.
Here’s a high level comparison of the two image sharing
approaches across five important categories. Those include:
Security, Network Management Costs, Scalability, Speed, and
PACS/Modality Configuration.
PACS AND MODALITY CONFIGURATION
With a VPN, the PACS or modality must be told the AE
title and IP of each destination in addition to all of the
aforementioned VPN/network maintenance.
SECURITY
SPEED
A VPN is analogous to an airplane jetway (show graphic somewhere). The path is fairly secure
from outside interferences but the traceability of who (or what) is going through the pipe
is minimal. Furthermore, the pipe is secured only by the two ends (or firewalls). If there is a
breach at one end, it opens a clear path to the other end (or organization).
Transmitting DICOM over a VPN is only 70% efficient for
In the specific case of image sharing, even if it’s secured down to only the DICOM ports, DICOM
query retrieve has no security (or auditing) to track what is sent or requested across DICOM.
an example, latency from Hawaii to L.A. is 156 ms. Obviously,
BEAM’S CONNECTIONS ON THE OTHER HAND
• Are individually secured by SSL technology used in the banking industry
• Are formed instantaneously only as needed for a given transfer
• Dissolve immediately upon transfer completion thereby avoiding the open VPN tunnel risk
any given network bandwidth. VPNs are very handshake
intensive. As latency increases (with for example increasing
distance), transfer speed of a VPN declines significantly. As
time is critical for strokes, traumas, and tele-radiology cases
with short SLAs.
Additionally, under DICOM over VPN, transfers can be
interrupted and irrecoverable if a sufficient network glitch
(lost packets) occurs. The last part of a study or an entire
series could be lost in transmission.
SCALABILITY
VPNs are individually established between two points. Thus, to set up N sites with complete
enterprise connectivity requires many connections (N² - N). As an example, in the case
of connecting five (5) sites with VPNs, this would require 20 connections. The setup and
maintenance requirements for each node and VPN tunnel are not insignificant.
Whereas, BEAM allows a site to get on and connect with anyone with no additional setup.
BEAM ALLOWS YOUR ORGANIZATION TO CONNECT AND SCALE TO AN INFINITE
NUMBER OF SITES.
Whereas, BEAM is infinitely and easily scalable with no
additional PACS configuration required.
BEAM IS MUCH FASTER AND EFFICIENT (2X-3X)
• BEAM routing is dynamic. No costly dedicated pipes
are required and routing can “go around” down
internet segments.
• BEAM is stateless. Network connectivity interruption
does not affect BEAM. BEAM will deliver the entire data
set bit-perfect to the destination.
• BEAM will resume transmission after packet loss ceases
or network connectivity is restored.
• BEAM is highly tolerant of slow connections. BEAM can
even run over a cellular or satellite connection.