IPsec with 3DES and effect on the Performance

[sajsoft]

We are going to Implement IPsec tunneling in our 20 routers and PIX 515.What will be the effect on the current performance of the router and link after the implementation of IPsec

Thanks

Saj

[Richard Burts]

The effect on the link will probably be minimal. IPSec does add some additional headers, so the volume of traffic on the link will increase, but probably not enough to matter much.

The effect on the router is harder to predict. Some routers have encryption accelerator modules. These routers do most of the IPSec processing in hardware and the impact on the router will be minimal. Other routers do not have the accelerators and all of the IPSec processing will be done in software. The effect on these routers will be greater.

The effect on the router will also depend on the processor of the router and how many other things need the processor to run (how close to capacity is the processor already?).

HTH

Rick

[sajsoft]

Curently all our branch routers are 1760 routers and Head office router is 2610 .For all the 1760 routers processor utilisation close to 5 to 6 %

and for the 2610 processor utilisation 20 to 25 %.

Currently we have GRE tunnels between the routers.

2610 is having 128 MB RAM

1720 is having 85 MB RAM