Back to back file transfer tests to establish the real transport efficiency of wide area networked links plus the effect of adding the VPN services.

Benchmark Test: TCP/IP only. The wide area link was simulated using bandwidths from 64Kbps and 4Mbps between two Cisco 3640 routers. A laptop was transfering files from one side of the link to a Sun SPARCstation on the other side.

VPN Test: In addition to the above configuration Nortel Contivity units were introduced to add IPSEC, 3DES and SHA-1 Integrity to the data.