Help With Networking Dissertation about VPN's

[hummy]

Hey guys my uni project is based on looking at these different VPN setups and then setting them up and running tests to give them a score for different bussiness scenarios the different scenarios being small, medium and large business's

What I want to find out about is the different metrics such as speed bandwidth and if the vpn protocols effect this in anyway also maybe how much it would cost to setup. I am then going to look at the encryption and talk about that.

Now I am a bit of a noob so some of the information I have posted may be wrong not possible etc I have not started fully yet as I have been working on other assignments so I guess my main question is:

I wanted to run these tests using a simulation through either a program or something I setup myself using virtual box

Would I be able to setup and test all of these:

PPTP VPN
Site-to-Site VPN
L2TP VPN
IPsec
SSL
MPLS VPN
Hybrid VPN

I need to get tests for all of these

 

[lyner10]

As far as I know you can do to them all on Windows Server 2008-2012, I might be wrong but looks it up. Just get an windows server iso and install it on virtual box or Vmware. It's legal anyway as long as you dont get past the trial time. and if that happened. Just re install and reconfig them again. I'm not sure how the metric, maybe someone here can give you that info.

 

[bill001g]

Not sure what other than fundamental knowledge you can possibly get trying to simulate this via virtual machines. In the real world most this stuff is run on dedicated appliance devices designed especially for the purpose. The high end stuff actually has custom chips to do acceleration of encryption and other functions. This would be like trying to run a pc monitor without a full blown video card and try to use the main processor and memory to do the function. You can likely make something work but it in no way compare to a realistic environment.

So maybe you could use it help learn what the traffic looks like but you can not actually test anything. You are likely going to have to research the products on the market and make estimations based on the data since I doubt you will be able to afford even the mid level VPN gear.

 

[kBWarrior]

You can get a security appliance, like an old Cisco PIX or SonicWALL low end series, and set them up yourself. Or any Windows Server will give you the option to configure VPN as well.

The main thing to remember is that VPN shortens the overall amount of information in a packet, which results in more packets needing to be transmitted to send the same amount of information if you were not connected to a VPN. The stronger the encryption, the smaller the actual data is being transmitted, resulting in more packets needing to be sent, which can increase latency. This will vary from VPN to VPN I would imagine.

An easy way to get this going would be to set up and connect to various VPNs, and then benchmark them against websites like speedtest.net, or transferring large files across the VPN and monitoring the amount of data being transmitted per minute. This would allow you to create pretty charts and graphs for your paper. Also, you would be able to discuss each one providing the pros vs cons of security vs speed.

Also, remember not everyone is using a VPN for business purposes.
With piracy, and regional content locking from companies like NetFlix and Amazon, people are looking to VPNs to access data illegally as well.