A Deterministic Finite Model for Evaluating Performance Variations of Virtual Private Network Tunneling Protocols

ABSTRACT

Virtual Private Network (VPN) became a necessary networking technology under consideration. The VPN technology protects information being transmitted over the internet by allowing users to establish a virtual private “tunnel” to securely enter internal network. This possibility enable the user to access resources, data and communications via insecure network such as the internet. This paper looks at the performance of the Internet Protocol Security (IPsec), Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and VPN tunnelling protocols and determines which of the protocol is best suited for interconnecting branch offices or site to site in an organization network. The analytic preferences are drawn from a deterministic model developed to evaluate the performance variations of the tunnelling protocols that are represented using finite state machines. The results of the investigation reveals that the performance is mainly a function of time, that is, high signal strength especially for SSL can be productive, and a function of distance especially for the IPsec, where the strength of the network is dependent on the closeness of the branch offices to the main office.

Keywords: VPN Protocols, finite state machines, tunneling mode, SSL, IPSec