We have a problem with the VPN client and Windows File Shares. Windows File Share performance with the Cisco VPN client using dialup is dreadful.
To summarise a packet capture was taken and 300+ packets were observed during the actual transfer of a 25k file compared to 30+ packets using FTP to transfer the same file. Also the average response time observed during the Windows transfer was 413ms compared to 295ms for the FTP transfer. We also tested a standard dialup connection and although we couldn’t do a packet capture to compare the transport mechanism it was significantly quicker than the VPN.
From the above evidence above I think that the Windows client uses a different mechanism for dialup as apposed to a LAN connection. I also think that because of the way Cisco implements the VPN client that Windows “thinks” it’s connected to a LAN and decides to use a “verbose” method of communication. I am not entirely sure about this but one thing is definite and that is the combination of VPN client and Windows file shares equals incredibly poor performance.
Does anyone have a similar experience or has anyone resolved this?
We are using 4.0.3F and PIX 515 running 6.3(3). We have also tried an older version of the client 3.6.4C I think.
The connection is only used for VPN traffic and we were the only active connection during testing.
Thanks in advance.
