Factors Impacting the Performance of Data Transferred Via VPN

Abstract

As a cost effective measure to attain security and confidentiality of data, Virtual Private Network (VPN) is used to interconnect two networks. The research shows that the protocols and algorithms of VPNs adds the overhead and in turn affect the network performance. The two end point hardware appliances are configured with standard configuration to establish site to site VPN. There are different data formats transferred via these tunnels. A research was conducted in a simulation environment of open source technology to identify the various factors impacting the performance of data transfer via VPN tunnels. Empirical measurement shows that performance depends critically on nature of data and compressibility in different internet bandwidth conditions. This was also noticed that nested VPN architecture adds complexity in security at the cost of multifold transmission delays. VPN provide security at the cost of performance; hence application specific cost benefit analysis is essential to choose the optimal architecture.