The authors propose a Global Open Ethernet (GOE) architecture as a cost-effective scalable solution for next generation of VPNs over optical network infrastructure. Three main approaches have been proposed for a cost-effective VPN solution on metro area network (MAN): Resilient Packet Ring (RPR), Ethernet over MPLS (EoMPLS), Extended Ethernet via Stacked VLAN tagging (EESVLAN). None of these schemes can satisfy the following requirements at the same time: network topology flexibility, affordable network functionalities, low equipment cost, and low operational cost. We propose the GOE architecture as an affordable VPN solution that addresses all these requirements. GOE combines the functionality of MPLS VPN with low cost and easy operation of Ethernet-based solutions in a cost-effective scalable manner. In this paper, we evaluate the performance of EoMPLS, EESVLAN and GOE VPN solutions in terms of the cost and network utilization. We show that the cost of GOE solution is two-three times smaller than the cost of the other approaches. We also demonstrate that the network utilization provided by GOE is 22% higher than that of both EoMPLS and EESVLAN. Therefore, GOE can be shown to be a cost-effective simple VPN solution with clear advantages in functionality, management and performance.