Which tunnel fits your organization?
Companies that need to send data from site to site over a network tunneling are faced with the question of which tunneling protocol is the ultimate fit for their needs.
When data is sent out from one device to another, or from one network to another, it uses a protocol. The data is typically split into two parts. The first part contains the data being transmitted, while the second part contains the rules of transmission. With a tunneling protocol, the data is encased in a data packet, and a tunnel is created between two endpoints. The data is then sent from the starting point to the endpoint.
There are several different types of tunneling protocols. Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) and IP Security (IPSEC) are the most commonly used protocols. Each offers different advantages to the organizations that use them.
GRE is a simple protocol. It facilitates higher data transfer efficiency, a higher payload-data ratio, and is easy for IT teams to set up and configure. It offers higher bandwidth utilization than other protocols, enabling the data to travel faster between the endpoints. GRE doesn’t encrypt the data it encapsulates, and its data doesn’t go through an authentication process, which helps improve the speed of transmission.
IPSEC is another tunneling protocol. While it is slower than GRE, it is used with standard VPN connections and is designed to ensure privacy and data authenticity. Secure packets make sense with sensitive business data, but there are a number of use cases, particularly when the data isn’t sensitive, where speed is more important than security.
Both IPSEC and GRE serve important roles in data transmission. IPSEC provides comprehensive security for IP tunneling, while GRE tunnels are ideal when network teams need to tunnel with multiple protocols or multicast.
Businesses attempting to connect remote users to online resources stored in a central location are best off implementing an IPSEC-based VPN. Those businesses that are working to move data over an otherwise incompatible network will probably prefer GRE.
Serving the Market
Teridion ensures that organizations are covered regardless of the tunneling protocol they want to use. Our Site-to-Site and Site-to-Cloud services are compatible with both known IPSEC VPNs and GRE tunnel encapsulation to transfer data across the internet. This dual-tunneling support enables better traffic routing for your existing network architecture.
The Teridion Network-as-a-Service platform is designed for an enterprise’s site connectivity and cloud workloads. We believe that our customers and market shouldn’t adapt their network architecture to fit Teridion; we adapt our technology around their needs. This approach fits within our company’s mission and philosophy towards serving our customers and demonstrates our commitment to adapting solutions to meet the evolving needs of the businesses that rely on us.
We have some more exciting updates coming up for our Site-to-Site and Site-to-Cloud services.
