we have successfully setup a Site-to-site IPSec VPN connection between our two offices in Germany and China. Below are the characteristics of both sites, VPN and current speeds:
Germany
VPN Router Zyxel Zywall USG 100
Site's Internet speed: 50/50 Mbps
VPN Tunnel
Type: IPSec
Authentication: SHA-1
Encryption: AES-128
MSS Auto
China
VPN Router Cisco RV180 Multifunction VPN Firewall
Site's Internet speed: 20/20 Mbps
Current Speeds
Ping from Germany to China: 250 – 350 ms
Ping from China to Germany: 250 – 300 ms
File Transfer speeds between sites: avg. 10KB/s
Traceroute from Germany to China
Tracing route to [10.67.8.189] over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 <1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 10.67.5.1
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 370 ms 366 ms 336 ms [10.67.8.189]
Trace complete.
As you can see, we have major speed problems, making even Remote Desktop sometimes unusable. Previously, I have used L2TP between these sites and the performance was much better, RDP usable.
Any advice appreciated. Let me know if you need more information.
Best,
Tom
Best Answer
The speed/throughput may be some external factor, as EEAA mentions. But in general, when I've needed to provide remote access across long distance links (Chicago-Hong Kong or London-Seoul), RDP was not an option. Latency kills you at those distances...
Do you have the option to use something that's a bit better with high-latency long-distance links? Citrix (of course) and Ericom Blaze (and RDP accelerator) come to mind, as they fare much better in the conditions you describe.