Performance analysis of multi-tunnel virtual private networks in wireless environments

In this paper we report on the experimental results and the analysis of the performance of Virtual Private Network (VPN) implementations over wireless infrastructures. The VPN tunneling protocol considered for this work is IP Security. The collected data includes critical performance measures, such as the application throughput, packet loss, jitter, and the round-trip delay. These metrics are chosen as they give fundamental indicators of the overall performance of multi-tunnel VPNS. We would also discuss how they could also be used in identifying ways for enhancing the performance of the VPN applications in wireless environments. We further investigate and discuss the contribution of the CPU, inter-packet generation rate, payload data size, and the number of simultaneously operating VPNs in shaping the behavior of these performance measures. The overall results and analysis of the investigations establishes that the CPU processing power, payload data size, and the packet generation rate are the crucial factors in determining the performance of such multi-tunnel VPN implementations.