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Introduction

The digital transformation era, especially with the rise of remote work, has placed significant demands on network performance and security. One critical factor affecting the efficiency and reliability of remote access solutions such as VPNs and ZTNA is packet loss. With the average packet loss for remote workers in the USA at 1.8%, this short paper explores the importance of understanding packet loss’s impact on remote access solutions and demonstrates how Cloudbrink’s packet loss tool can be utilized to test and optimize these solutions.

The Importance of Understanding Packet Loss

Packet loss occurs when data packets transmitted across a network fail to reach their destination. This can result from various issues, including network congestion, hardware faults, interference in wireless networks, and more. Understanding the impact of packet loss is crucial for several reasons:

Performance Degradation:

  • Packet loss significantly hampers throughput, particularly in real-time communication applications like VoIP and video conferencing.
  • Even a small packet loss rate, combined with latency, can drastically reduce available bandwidth, affecting application responsiveness and user experience.
  • Impact on Security Solutions:
    • Security solutions like VPNs and ZTNA services often route traffic through additional network hops, which can exacerbate latency and therefore the impact of packet loss issues.
    • This routing, known as “hairpinning” and “ping ponging,” can lead to increased delays and reduced performance, making it essential to understand and mitigate packet loss’s impact.

User Experience:

  • Remote work environments, often relying on Wi-Fi networks at homes, hotels, or public places, are prone to higher packet loss rates.
  • ISPs provide a best-effort connection that is typically over-subscribed by up to 200:1. At peak times, the service will drop packets when overloaded.
  • Ensuring a high-quality user experience requires IT departments to anticipate and address these real-world conditions.

Cost Efficiency:

  • Identifying and addressing packet loss issues can prevent costly network upgrades and bandwidth expansions, optimizing existing resources for better performance.

Using Cloudbrink’s Packet Loss Tool

Cloudbrink provides a packet loss tool that introduces packet loss on the network link of a Windows PC. This tool is instrumental in simulating the conditions remote users face, allowing IT departments to test and optimize remote access solutions. Here’s how to effectively utilize the tool:

Simulate Real-World Conditions:

  • Introduce varying levels of packet loss using the tool to mimic real-world network conditions encountered by remote users.
  • Typical packet loss rates:
    • Home Wi-Fi near the router: 0.1-0.5%
    • Home Wi-Fi away from the router: 0.5-10%
    • Airport/Conference room Wi-Fi: 1%
    • Roaming user: 5-10%
    • 4G/5G: 0.5-5% (varies widely)
  • Test different scenarios, such as low, medium, and high packet loss rates, to understand their impact on application performance.
The measured average packet loss for remote workers in the USA is 1.8% 

Evaluate Remote Access Solutions:

  • Pick a remote access solutions, such as VPNs and ZTNA services, under simulated packet loss conditions.
  • Run multiple large file transfers to OneDrive or DropBox and note the time. (If the file transfer is too small, it will be hard to measure the different times.)
  • Observe and measure the performance degradation, including throughput reduction and any increased latency.
  • Repeat for different levels of packet loss and different services.
  • Test without any VPN or ZTNA service
  • Lastly compare with the Cloudbrink service – there is a free version you can use for this.

Identify Performance Bottlenecks:

  • Assess how packet loss affects critical applications and security services.
  • Identify specific performance limitations and bottlenecks introduced by packet loss and latency.

Optimize and Mitigate:

  • Use insights from testing to implement strategies for mitigating packet loss impact.
  • Ask your remote service provider for service levels that add less than 20 milliseconds of latency to mitigate packet loss impact (check your SLA; you may have up to 100 milliseconds of latency).

Ensure High-Quality User Experience:

  • Validate that optimized remote access solutions can handle packet loss effectively, ensuring a high-quality user experience.
  • Continuously monitor and adjust configurations based on real-time network performance data.

Test the Cloudbrink Solution:

  • The Cloudbrink solution is the only secure access solution that mitigates the impact of packet loss.
  • Testing has shown that the Cloudbrink solution provides on average a 40% – 400% increase in application responsiveness and up to  30x the performance of other solutions for developers or media companies with large file transfers
  • Get the Cloudbrink high-performance ZTNA for free

Conclusion

Understanding the impact of packet loss on remote access solutions is pivotal for maintaining optimal network performance and security in today’s remote work environment. Cloudbrink’s packet loss tool offers a practical approach to simulate and test these conditions, providing invaluable insights for IT departments. By leveraging this tool, organizations can proactively address packet loss issues, ensuring a seamless and secure remote work experience for their users.

For more information on how Cloudbrink can enhance your network performance and security, visit Cloudbrink.