VIRTUAL PRIVATE NETWORKS : An Analysis of the Performance in State-of-the-Art Virtual Private Network solutions in Unreliable Network Conditions

Abstract: This study aimed to identify the differences between state-of-the-art VPN solutions on different operating systems. It was done because a novel VPN protocol is in the early stages of release and a comparison of it, to other current VPN solutions is interesting. It is interesting because current VPN solutions are well established and have existed for a while and the new protocol stirs the pot in the VPN field. Therefore a contemporary comparison between them could aid system administrators when choosing which VPN to implement. To choose the right VPN solution for the occasion could increase performance for the users and save costs for organizations who wish to deploy VPNs. With the remote workforce increasing issues of network reliability also increases, due to wireless connections and networks beyond the control of companies. This demands an answer to the question how do VPN solutions differ in performance with stable and unstable networks? This work attempted to answer this question. This study is generally concerning VPN performance but mainly how the specific solutions perform under unreliable network conditions.It was achieved by researching past comparisons of VPN solutions to identify what metrics to analyze and which VPN solutions have been recommended. Then a test bed was created in a lab network to control the network when testing, so the different VPN implementations and operating systems have the same premise. To establish baseline results, performance testing was done on the network without VPNs, then the VPNs were tested under reliable network conditions and then with unreliable network conditions. The results of that were compared and analyzed. The results show a difference in the performance of the different VPNs, also there is a difference on what operating system is used and there are also differences between the VPNs with the unreliability aspects switched on. The novel VPN protocol looks promising as it has overall good results, but it is not conclusive as the current VPN solutions can be configured based on what operating system and settings are chosen. With this set-up, VPNs on Linux performed much better under unreliable network conditions when compared to setups using other operating systems. The outcome of this work is that there is a possibility that the novel VPN protocol is performing better and that certain combinations of VPN implementation and OS are better performing than others when using the default configuration. This works also pointed out how to improve the testing and what aspects to consider when comparing VPN implementations.