Direcway Satelite Internet -my lastest experience.

[looch]

The VPN is like infrastructure - a bridge if you will. Terminal server or Citrix would be like your vehicle.

You use a VPN to connect with terminal server or Citrix.

At least , this is my interpretation.

 

[rockyridgefarm]

Citrix or terminal server should have far lower bandwidth requirements than VPN and may be do-able on Direcway. I haven't tried them, but I will give it a shot, soon. I am getting ready for a vacation up Wyoming way, so it'll be a little while before I try

 

[WVBill]

Remember that bandwidth and latency, although related, are two different things. Direcway may provide more bandwidth than terrestrial circuits but the latency (round-trip time for a signal to travel) will always be significantly more. If your application depends on low latency (e.g. a quick response to a keystroke entry) then sattellite circuits probably will not give you the needed performance. On the other hand, if you are downloading a large mp3 file then you want the bandwidth and the latency may not hurt too much. VPN requires a lot of hand shaking between the near end and the far end to maintain the security of the tunnel. This hand shaking depends alot on timing - high latency really messes with this timing.

 

[TerryinMD]

Using a VPN has nothing to do with the circuit speed or bandwidth. It has to do with the technology to ensure that the circuit is secure which takes a lot of overhead. Theoritically, you can have VPN using a 56kbs circuit - why I do not know, but you could. It can be set up over almost any of the circuit types - T1, T3, DSL, etc. That is why most VPN circuits being sold are high speed circuits - typically T1's.

As previously mentioned, the handshaking is the determinant in VPN performance. The type of tunneling involved is another determinant - point to point or fully meshed. Point to point is the easiest and the fastest. Fully meshed means that all the circuit points have access to every other point for redundancy. As you can imagine, the overhead involved is complex and expensive in terms of performance.

I used a VPN connection from home. I usually get 28.8kbs and using a VPN with a top line speed of 28.8 is very painful. Reminded me of using AOL with a 2.4kbs modem - oh, the agony!!!! /w3tcompact/icons/eyes.gif I had to use an application which was typically very chatty and constantly polled the main server for status. When I pulled my emails, it would typically take a half and hour to receive 15-20 emails - mostly text messages with a couple of small attachments. If one of those emails had a mid-sized attachment, I could walk away from the machine for an hour and the messages would still be coming in. It was horrible. So much for working from the house with a VPN and a low speed connection.

Terry

 

[Wingnut]

Isn't it amazing how fast we get spoiled, Terry? I go nuts when I access Outlook (not express, the big pig!) from home ... and I switch the monitor over to another PC for 30 to 45 minutes ... 'cause that's how long the handshaking and syncronization and verything else will take before I cans start looking at my email.
And the frustration is there even though I well remember my 300 baud modem (still have several, too, in my "museum")

pete

 

[WVBill]

Terry: concur with what you wrote. At my last project we ran VPN over circuits ranging from 256K to T1 speed. We found that whatever the bandwidth utilization was at any point in time, 40% of that was attributable to the VPN "chattieness". Our application (Lotus Notes "database") at the client end was running dog slow - not due to maxing out bandwidth but due to latency.

 

[TerryinMD]

Wingnut,

Me spoiled!!! I worked for WorldCom (UUNET branding). We had GigE between the floors and buildings, 100 mbs to the desktop, and the pipes going out of the building were BIG!!

So working from home was painful and now since I got the WorldCom instant retirement plan /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif, access to the Net is just slow. I've gotten use to it and it's like getting an injury. It hurts at first but after a while you get use to it.

Let's go back another step.... how about a 110 baud modem!! Man - you had that kind of access back in the late 70's and you were envied by all. Very much a status symbol to have at least one modem in the office. Geez... talking about the stone ages.

WVBill,

Yes, you have a good understanding of the VPN issue and it's usage with different applications. I remember that we discussed that issue previously. It is very interesting to see how different applications work with the newer networking technologies. When you lose 40% of your bandwidth for privacy is it worth it. Don't know the answer. Would it have been better to Firewall everything heavily? Maybe the VPN was the easier solution... ie easier for the network guys to implement and purchase.

Anywho..... an interesting thread.

Terry

 

[rockyridgefarm]

<font color=blue>Maybe the VPN was the easier solution</font color=blue>

or the latest fad...

 

[Flint]

We have a two-way Earthlink DirecWay system at our place. The installation was fine, but as Mike mentioned the billing was not pleasant. We ended up being billed twice, once right out of our checking account and took more than a few phone calls and four weeks to get it straightened out.

The speed difference compared to our dial-up was eye-popping at first, but as someone mentioned now we're used to it and they seemed to have upgraded our phone lines so dial-up isn't so bad anymore. The reason we know this is that I have a Mac, which as someone mentioned isn't compatible and the wife works from home two to three days a week. She tried to connect her Thinkpad using VPN, which we were told by the Earthlink rep would work. After being unsuccessful we called tech support and were told it most definitely was not possible. Anyway, my wife did get it to work but it was slower than dial-up. I've heard that they are working on making VPN possible, but this really isn't my area.

We use the sat for our desktop PC. It works with a signal of anything down to 31. I know because ours is usually in the 30's - I think I need to knock a tree down that's in the way. I'm jealous of your 70 signal Mike. Ours does go out in bad weather (lots of wind, fog, heavy rain, or snow).

Dan

BTW - Here's a link which contains a lot of satellite info most of which may as well be written in Hieroglyphics when it comes to my tech knowledge.

http://www.copperhead.cc/

 

[MikePA]

For companies that require secure transmission over the Internet, VPN is really the only way for broadband connections. Firewalls protect an internal network but do nothing for ensuring the data is protected while travelling the Internet highway. To do that it has to be encrypted and VPN does that. It's a 'fad' that will last a long time. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif