Abstract

Indus River Networks, Inc. commissioned The Tolly Group to test its RiverWorks Enterprise VPN against Nortel Networks’ Contivity Extranet Switch 4000 (CES 4000) and TimeStep Corp.’s PERMIT/Gate 7520. Tests were conducted to determine the single-tunnel throughput for IPSec and the point-to-point tunneling protocol (PPTP) connections over a simulated Internet. Tests shipping ASCII text data across 56 Kbit/s links, and using compression where available, reveal that RiverWorks delivers an average 20% to 60% greater IPSec throughput than Nortel’s CES 4000 or TimeStep’s PERMIT/ Gate 7520. Results also demonstrate that RiverWorks delivered 50% greater throughput when using PPTP than the CES 4000. For VPN vendors who use the Internet as a transport for remote-user VPN tunnel sessions as opposed to more costly direct-dial lines to a traditional remote access server, RiverWorks makes this a viable option because it can effectively optimize data transport over the Internet.