L2TP

Accelerate L2TP Over Distance with Silver Peak

Connect networks with L2TP without sacrificing application performance. Silver Peak optimizes L2TP and the applications that run over it without complex configuration or tuning. Accelerate data replicaiton, database synchronization and file transfers. Regardless of the application that is running through the tunnel, Silver Peak will improve its performance by as much as 20X.

When IT administrators use the Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) to tunnel L2 traffic over routed L3 networks, they often do so to take advantage of the L2 network’s ease of configuration and management. However, L2TP doesn't offer authentication or encryption, forcing the use of IPSec to protect data in transit. The additional IPSec headers, though, cause packet fragmentation degrading application performance.

Application acceleration devices cannot help as they do not “understand” L2TP and nor do they protect data in flight. Purchasing more bandwidth also will not address the performance problems of delivering data across distance as delay and packet loss, not bandwidth, are typically the bottlenecks.

Silver Peak addresses these problems by combining the best of site-to-site VPN security with the performance and ease-of-use of WAN acceleration. Silver Peak automatically optimizes and secures L2TP and the applications that run across it. More specifically, Silver Peak addresses the following performance challenges:

  • Bandwidth – Silver Peak byte-level deduplication removes redundant L2TP data from the WAN. The first time the L2TP sends data it is fingerprinted and compressed by Silver Peak. Subsequent requests are fulfilled by the local Silver Peak instance. 
  • Latency – Silver Peak mitigates latency enabling L2TP to operate more efficiently over distance. TCP Acceleration includes windows scaling, selective acknowledgements, and HighSpeed TCP. CIFS Acceleration includes CIFS read-ahead, CIFS write-behind, and CIFS metadata optimizations. Latency is also reduced through packet coalescing, which re-packages multiple smaller packets into a single larger one, and through Dynamic Path Control, which selects the fastest path to a remote location.
  • Congestion – Silver Peak makes L2TP performance more predictable across congested WANs. Lost packets are reconstituted in real-time at the far end of a WAN link, avoiding delays that come with multiple round-trip retransmissions. Out-of-order packets are resequenced, avoiding retransmission and processing delays that occur when packets arrive out-of-order.

Silver Peak protects L2TP data in-flight between locations with an Accelerated IPSec virtual private network (VPN) running AES-256, the enterprise standard for data encryption. Data-at-rest within Silver Peak instances is also encrypted with AES. End-to-end encryption is provided by SSL/TLS.

Silver Peak offers the most scalable and cost-effective data acceleration software for connecting data centers, remote offices and the cloud. Download and deploy it yourself in just 20 minutes or contact us to see how Silver Peak can help your team.

Featured Products

  • VX WAN Optimization Software

    VX Virtual WAN Optimization Software

    Silver Peak VX WAN optimization software supports the full list of Silver Peak WAN optimization features. Use Silver Peak VX software to build a Silver Peak Unity WAN fabric for integrating your enterprise WAN, the Internet and the cloud, and to optimize every SaaS application.

  • NX WAN Optimization Appliances

    NX Appliances for Application Acceleration and Replication Acceleration

    Silver Peak NX WAN optimization appliances are the industry's highest-performance WAN optimization solutions, delivering three-times the WAN performance and capacity of the nearest competing products. Silver Peak Software for Life program means you can convert NX appliances to VX software at anytime for free.

  • Unity Architecture: Building an SD-WAN Fabric

    Silver Peak Unity is the premier solution for broadband and hybrid WANs.

Benefits

  • Avoid or delay expensive WAN bandwidth upgradesby eliminating the majority of L2TP traffic from the WAN.
  • Extend L2TP deployments by ensuring L2TP traffic is delivered reliably.
  • Protect more data by improving replication across L2TP by 20X.
  • Move more L2TP traffic over distance by eliminating congestion and packet loss that slows L2TP tunneled applications over the WAN.

Resources

  • This video demonstrates the basic process of creating a Silver Peak tunnel in order to optimize traffic. The video covers tunnel configuration, creating a route policy that specifies what is being optimized, and checking your work via the Current Flows.
  • Growing concern over the interception of Internet traffic by governmental agencies is driving enterprises to revisit how they secure storage replication and other essential applications between locations. Conventional site-to-site virtual private networks (VPNs) protect data in-flight, but require extensive networking expertise to configure and do not address the performance challenges of delivering applications over distance. Silver Peak's Accelerated IPSec combines the best of site-to-site IPSec VPN security and wide area network (WAN) acceleration.
  • The Entertainment Company is a leading provider of entertainment, information and communications products and services in the United States. When The Entertainment Company wanted to establish a disaster recovery site, it faced a challenge all too familiar to many enterprises: How to replicate large amounts of data across the country and still meet Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs)? 
  • Autodesk, Inc. is a world leader in 2D and 3D design and engineering software for the manufacturing, building and construction, and media and entertainment markets. Since its introduction of AutoCAD® software in 1982, Autodesk has developed the broadest portfolio of state-of-the-art software applications to help customers experience their ideas digitally before they are built. Fortune 1000 companies rely on Autodesk for the tools to design, visualize and simulate their ideas to save time and money, enhance quality and foster innovation for competitive advantage.
  • Panasonic turns to Silver Peak for Real-Time Global Design Collaboration