A dialogue is initiated between the two ends of the point to point link, they negotiate the initial security settings, and exchange authentication information, either in the form of digital certificate or, more commonly, a pre-shared key. When authentication has been successful a tunnel is established between the routers. Traffic sent over this tunnel is encrypted using one of a number of pre-defined cryptographic algorithms. This makes the contents unreadable to anyone that intercepts the traffic.

A VPN allows you share resources between sites seamlessly. With a VPN everything available to you in your head office could potentially be available to your branch office as well. IPsec gives you the added peace of mind from knowing your data is secure as is traverses the internet.

*Please note certain routers may require an additional licence in order to enable VPN functionality.

IPsec VPNs are perfect for small scale deployments with only a one or two remote sites, or as an interim solution when migrating to other technologies such as MPLS.IPsec relies on processor intensive cryptographic algorithms in order secure data transmission; as such the throughput of a VPN is often lower than normal maximum throughput of your hardware. IPsec VPNs also incur larger transmission overheads, reducing the efficiency of this type of VPN connection.