Virtual Private Network’s Impact on Network Performance

Abstract

We categorized VPN’s impact in to two different aspects; The affecting aspect, and the affected aspect. The affecting aspect of the impact encompasses factors such as security, algorithms, hardware, and software. Whereas the affected aspect is of the likes of network performance. While VPNs have managed to integrate security, one of the affecting aspect of the impact on one hand, on the other hand, VPNs should be regarded as a potential threat to network performance. In this study, for affordability purpose, we choose to use NS-2 simulated test-bed to shed light on the VPN’s performance impact in a network. Considering the most common network performance metrics, throughput and delay; we assessed these performance metrics by means of average and percentage changes theories. The findings emphasize quantitative impact on the TCP/IP throughput than on its counterpart UDP/IP. We finally developed an analytical equation to model this VPN’s performance impact.