VPN Speeds

[pizzaman2003]

Due to encryption is a vpn slowed down having to authenticate router to router?

We are considering going to broadband cable due to speed limits for our current SDSL which is limiting us to 320k and 416k. Will I see better performance move to a bandwidth of 1.5mx768 for router to router vpn?

Thanks in advance for the insight

Pizzaman

 

[EddieVenus]

Of course you will see better performance. That comes with the fact that you have a higher bandwidth, period. BUT the VPN overhead does take its toll on the speed of the terminating devices, generally firewalls or routers. Depending on the quality of the equiptment you may notice a slight slowdown in throughput. But that will be more than offset by the increase in speed.

Now you do have other issues, like the fact that the cable system is shared, so those speeds mentioned before are not *garaunteed* like DSL. (note that DSL is still shared, but at the CO, where the big pipes are) So depending on the local circumstances, you may not see any improvment, or even a decrease in performance. This being said, you *should* have faster transfers, and depending on what network the remote end is on, you may have better response times as well. Then again you may get slower response times and higher average speeds, thereby not really helping much at all.

I would get cable in, test it, then see which is better and stick with that. The overhead for a VPN tunnel was like 4-6% on T1 speeds if I remember correctly. (note: I often do not remember correctly) If these percents are correct then doubling your speed and losing 6% is still better. I hope something in here helped in some way.

EV

 

[pizzaman2003]

Thank you for the insight EV. Yes, I believe the cable may offer better bandwidth since I can at least move up tiers in bandwidth speed vs. the sdsl because we are locked in to our speeds due to location of the CO and over extended loops...

Here's my scenario I have one main office and 2-branch locations one is in another city and one across the street from the main. I want to be able to run mapped drives to the server at the main location from the remote locations. All client computers map to directories for a database in order to run our software.

Also, we want to be able to pull files from the server at the main location from the remote locations with some relative speed...currently from a remote pc downloading a 54mg. file takes like 1hr 45min. and the database access takes forever also.

In a typical scenario like this what do other companies use for a cost effective solution beyond leasing t1's per location. If this cable vpn doesn't work like we need it too for the locations I think this is going to be another step backwards.
The server card I'm also using is a 3com Etherlink Server 10/100 PCI NIC...amd athalon xp processor 2.4 and 512 mb of ddr2700 ram...Raid with 20 gb 7200 rpm drives. So I don't think the server will be the bottleneck. I know it's not the fastest but it performs good for what we are doing..We also have routers at each locale with switches in place running router to router vpn.
I'm open to any suggestions??

Thanks,

Pizza