Network performance comparison of VPN protocols on wired and wireless networks

VPNs are a well-established method employed by organizations to secure their data communications across un-trusted networks. This is due to their relative low cost and ease with which they can be implemented, VPNs also allow the flexibility for staff to be able to access network resources in a secure manner from anywhere in the world. However performance of the network must be considered alongside the flexibility and security a VPN provides. With the address range of IPv4 all but exhausted organizations are now slowly adopting IPv6 addressing, and alongside this there have also been advances with wireless technologies such as the introduction of IEEE802.11ac. In this research paper we conduct performance evaluations of three VPNs (PPTP, IPSec, and SSTP) in a Windows 7 Windows 2012 Client/Server network environment over wired and wireless media (Ethernet and IEEE802.11ac) using both IP versions and observe their performance. IT is found that IPSec had the worst performance in all network metrics and SSTP had the most consistent performance. PPTP performed well in the IPv4 tests but is incompatible with IPv6.