Empirical network performance evaluation of IPSec algorithms on windows operating systems implemented on a test-bed

With the growth of Internet in the recent decades, business environment have transformed to take advantage of the new opportunities offered by this global phenomenon. Fundamental changes have occurred to data and communications networks and one such change has been the use of Virtual Private Network (VPN) to establish organizational networks that may span many geographic locations. VPN solution is cost effect and provides all the benefits of traditional multi-site links; however performance has been identified as one of the major concerns of this technology. There are multiple mechanisms and algorithms with which VPNs can be implemented, each having its own strengths and weaknesses. In this research undertaking, three VPN techniques, namely DES, 3DES and AES, which are commonly used to implement IPSec VPNs are performance analyzed on test-bed setup. The VPN algorithms tested show that there may be performance differences when implemented with different Windows operating systems.