Evaluating SSL-Based VPNs?

Posted by Cliff on Monday February 16, 2004 @03:30PM from the assessing-the-technology dept.

Saqib Ali asks: "There are numerous SSL based VPNs available in the market. They all offer same basic functionality, but a varied set of features. I am currently evaluating a few of these of SSL based VPN solutions. Compared to a IPsec based VPN, SSL based VPNs are fairly easy to test and evaluate, since no client installation is required for the SSL based VPNs. One way to evaluate is to test all of my applications against the each product. I am also planning to test support for various browsers. I was wondering if Slashdot readers have some suggestion/ideas on what else to include in my evaluation matrix. Are there any features that are a MUST, or things that I should watch out for while evaluating SSL based VPNs?."

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If you're looking at portal-type VPNs by darnok · 2004-02-16 16:05 · Score: 4, Insightful

you want to test scalability. Try hitting it with lots of different "virtual users" simultaneously, and have a few do uploads/downloads of big files if that's functionality you're going to offer.

You'd be surprised how badly some of these solutions scale from a performance perspective. CPU utilisation is the usual culprit, and many of the "off the shelf" solutions don't offer lots of CPU scalability options.