Performance Implications of IPSec Deployment

Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) use the Internet or other data network service as a backbone to provide a secure connection across a potentially hostile WAN. Such security guarantees provide the motivation for VPN deployment. This security does, however, come at a performance cost brought about by the increased processing overhead. This paper presents an investigation into these overheads. In particular, this investigation will consider different user resource availability in addition to router type and encryption algorithms.