I thought the group might be interested in the results of some throughput
testing we conducted recently. The purpose of the tests was to determine
the relative performance of the OpenBrick E platform as a Bering 1.2
VPN/router. The results were very interesting.
The test process was to FTP a 600Mb binary file between two identical PCs.
The PCs were on 100Mb LANs connected via the Bering 1.2 VPNs . Before we
did the VPN tests, we benchmarked the PCs on the same LAN so we could get
an idea of the maximum throughput speed. The PCs transferred the file at
78.85 Mb/sec.
The next test was to FTP from the PC connected to the OpenBrick E to the
PC connected to a 500 Mhz P III running Bering 1.2. The transfer rate was
only 12.67 Mb/sec. The 3DES IPSEC encryption was certainly taking it's
toll.
Next we replaced both Bering machines with Nortel Contivity 1500 VPN
devices. The Contivity is a popular VPN concentrator for small branch
offices. It was designed specifically for the purpose of a VPN
concentrator. Imagine our surprise when the Contivity transfer rate was
only 4.45 Mb/sec. The Bering boxes were running weblet, shorewall,
dnscache, dhcpd, ssh, sshd, sftp, snmp, and snmpd in addition to IPSEC,
and yet they were almost three times faster than commercial VPN
concentrators.
We recently pulled off the covers from a dead Contivity and found a
complete PC with a 400 Mhz Celeron processor. Not wanting any usable
hardware to go to waste, we put in a new (actually an old used) hard disk
and made the Contivity into a Bering 1.2 VPN concentrator. We then used
this Contivity in place of the OpenBrick E and ran the first VPN test
again. This time the throughput was clocked at 13.11 Mb/sec! Wow! A
Nortel Contivity converted to Bering 1.2 runs almost 3 times faster than
one running Nortel software. It was also slightly faster than the Open
Brick E with it's little 533 Mhz Via processor.
I didn't try an unmodified Contivity to the Bering P III. It might be an
interesting test to try. Maybe later.
Here is a schematic of the tests/results:
PC
-PC
78.85 Mb/sec
PC--OpenBrickP III---PC
12.67 Mb/sec
PC--ContivityContivity---PC
4.45 Mb/sec
PC--Bering Contivity-P III---PC
13.11 Mb/sec
If anyone else has done any benchmarking, I'd like to hear about it.
My hat is off to the LEAF developers. You have put together one impressive
collection of software.
Roger
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