Remote Office performance is slow over VPN

[hollywoodmi]

I have 2 offices, Site A (main site) and Site B. All the servers are at Site A. The users at the remote site are complaining about slow performace when using applications on the server. I have doubled the bandwidth here at the main site and that hasn't seemed to help. I'm starting to think it may be equipment. Any Ideas? Below are the spec's.

Site A-
Has a bonded T1 3MB up and down
Cisco 1841 WAN Router - Just doing WAN traffic
Linksys WRV54G LAN Router - Doing LAN traffic & VPN
Servers live here

Site B-
Has a Comcast Enhanced Internet Connection 16MB down 2MB up
Comcast modem - SMC8013 - WAN Traffic
Linksys WRV54G LAN Router - Doing LAN traffic & VPN

I appreciate all the help I can get.
Thanks!

 

[lgarner]

It could be your bandwidth, but that depends on the application. Your site B users most likely have 3% of the network speed of your site A users.

One simple test would be to copy a large file from A to B and back again. A 6MB file should take in the neighborhood of 16 seconds from A to B and 24 seconds from B to A. Your numbers will be lower, but the difference shouldn't be huge.

 

[hollywoodmi]

Ok I'll try that tomorrow (not in the office today)and post my results. Site B has more bandwidth than Site A. Are you saying that because it's a cable connection?

 

[lgarner]

I was referring to site A users, sitting on site A's 100Mb/s (or higher) LAN, and accessing an application on site A's local servers.

The main thing to think of is what while you might have "fast" Internet connections, they're pitifully slow compared to a 100Mb/s or 1Gb/s LAN.

 

[hollywoodmi]

I totally understand it'll be much faster for users in the office vs. users accessing it from the remote office. However I still think it should be faster than what it is from the remote office. On July 3rd I transfered a 7.42MB file from Site A to Site B and then back, both transfers took 70 seconds. Today I transfered a 7.56 file from Site A to Site B and it took 84 seconds. From Site B to Site A it took 73 seconds.

 

[burtsbees]

That's hardly a big difference...you can expext broadband cable to vary like that.

Burt

 

[burtsbees]

Expect*...lol

 

[lgarner]

It'll vary, especially since there's normal overhead, and my off-the-cuff estimates don't consider upstream latency.

You might try something like dslreports.com as an unscientific test of each location's actual bandwidth.

I don't know how to check the equipment for latency other than removing it and putting it on a known good LAN.