Connection speeds needed for working over VPN

[Kerr27]

Hi there

As we are all preparing and trying to make plans to enable our businesses to work remotely from home where we can. I have a question about the line speeds needed to enable you to work over a VPN without any latency.

What would the best connection speeds? Would a 10/10 line be enough or would a 20/20 be better? Would there be a difference between a 10/10 line and a 20/20 line?
Could you work with a 10 upload and 8 download and experience a minimal latency?

I'm no expert in the IT world so looking for any advice or opinions! Thanks!

 

[gregmcc]

Depends on the amount of data you need to transfer and what you need to do to work remotely.

If you are only using the line for RDP/VNC etc then you don't need much bandwidth. If you need to transfer big files to work on them then you are going to have issues.

 

[irBosOtter]

Depends on many factors. For some a 512k line would be fine, for others 100Mb would still not be enough.

 

[Messugga]

Hi there

As we are all preparing and trying to make plans to enable our businesses to work remotely from home where we can. I have a question about the line speeds needed to enable you to work over a VPN without any latency.

What would the best connection speeds? Would a 10/10 line be enough or would a 20/20 be better? Would there be a difference between a 10/10 line and a 20/20 line?
Could you work with a 10 upload and 8 download and experience a minimal latency?

I'm no expert in the IT world so looking for any advice or opinions! Thanks!

Faster is usually better, when it comes to networking. Whether 10/8 will be sufficient for you - the short answer is: it depends.
What sort of work are you planning on doing on the connection? If you're opening huge spreadsheets, you'll feel it with any but the fastest internet connections. The internet connection of the network you're connecting to also plays a role, but odds are that that's going to be faster than your home's connection, if you work at any sort of larger business.

 

[syntax]

You are also limited to the speed on the other side of the VPN connection.
The more people that connect, the more your office would require.

There is a difference between latency and bandwidth as well.
Simple terms latency is the delay for data to reach you, bandwidth is how much can be sent.
So you could send a cake on a ferrari, or 500 cakes on a truck. The quantity is the bandwidth, the speed of the transport is the latency.

It is also application dependent and if you are uploading or downloading.
So alot of factors here.

 

[Kerr27]

Depends on the amount of data you need to transfer and what you need to do to work remotely.

If you are only using the line for RDP/VNC etc then you don't need much bandwidth. If you need to transfer big files to work on them then you are going to have issues.

We work with pretty large 3D models and other AutoCad drawings.. our biggest model at the moment is sitting close to around 5GB, so it would be accessing that and working on it and adding to it.

 

[Kerr27]

You are also limited to the speed on the other side of the VPN connection.
The more people that connect, the more your office would require.

There is a difference between latency and bandwidth as well.
Simple terms latency is the delay for data to reach you, bandwidth is how much can be sent.
So you could send a cake on a ferrari, or 500 cakes on a truck. The quantity is the bandwidth, the speed of the transport is the latency.

It is also application dependent and if you are uploading or downloading.
So alot of factors here.

So we are a small business, around 10 people and at the moment our internet connection at the office is dismal to say the least.
So we are looking for what speed we would need to get here at work, as most people all have pretty fast fiber connections at home.

 

[Kerr27]

Faster is usually better, when it comes to networking. Whether 10/8 will be sufficient for you - the short answer is: it depends.
What sort of work are you planning on doing on the connection? If you're opening huge spreadsheets, you'll feel it with any but the fastest internet connections. The internet connection of the network you're connecting to also plays a role, but odds are that that's going to be faster than your home's connection, if you work at any sort of larger business.

We working with 3D models, and AutoCad drawings, some spread sheets that are around 7/8mb and up to 20mb. We are looking to upgrade our connection at the office to something that will enable us to work over a VPN remotely but access everything here. This is also to say that we would need a pretty fast connection at the remote locations (ie home).

 

[gregmcc]

A few issues here. First off is your office is most likely not setup for VPN access. You will need a VPN device (router/firewall) to securely setup the VPN with decent authentication. You will be opening up your office network to the internet so this needs to be done properly and with security in mind. You will also need a static IP Address from your ISP.

On the bandwidth a 5Gb file with a 10Mbps connection will take approx 1 hour. Then when you are finished downloading and working on the file you will need to upload it, so another hour.

If 2 people are working at the same time downloading 5Gb files then the time will be double. How often will users be downloading/uploading files?

 

[Kerr27]

A few issues here. First off is your office is most likely not setup for VPN access. You will need a VPN device (router/firewall) to securely setup the VPN with decent authentication. You will be opening up your office network to the internet so this needs to be done properly and with security in mind. You will also need a static IP Address from your ISP.

On the bandwidth a 5Gb file with a 10Mbps connection will take approx 1 hour. Then when you are finished downloading and working on the file you will need to upload it, so another hour.

If 2 people are working at the same time downloading 5Gb files then the time will be double. How often will users be downloading/uploading files?

Thank you, yes we will need to do all the installation and setup professionally to make sure that the network is secure.

Sorry, I misunderstood your first reply. We will only be needing to the VPN to access the desktop remotely (using the 3D software that is installed on the desktop, which will be in the office) from a laptop or another pc at home.
So we will not be uploading and downloading large files, we will just be working on them through the VPN.

 

[syntax]

Thank you, yes we will need to do all the installation and setup professionally to make sure that the network is secure.

Sorry, I misunderstood your first reply. We will only be needing to the VPN to access the desktop remotely (using the 3D software that is installed on the desktop, which will be in the office) from a laptop or another pc at home.
So we will not be uploading and downloading large files, we will just be working on them through the VPN.

RDP sessions are relatively low bandwidth.
Depending on your work router you might be lucky and it supports some kind of VPN access.

if you guys have static IP addresses at home you could allow RDP from those IP's as an alternative solution.
If you need help with any of this drop me a PM, will see what I can do

 

[Kerr27]

RDP sessions are relatively low bandwidth.
Depending on your work router you might be lucky and it supports some kind of VPN access.

if you guys have static IP addresses at home you could allow RDP from those IP's as an alternative solution.
If you need help with any of this drop me a PM, will see what I can do

Awesome! Those are great ideas. Thank you so much for your advice!

 

[irBosOtter]

RDP sessions are relatively low bandwidth.
Depending on your work router you might be lucky and it supports some kind of VPN access.

if you guys have static IP addresses at home you could allow RDP from those IP's as an alternative solution.
If you need help with any of this drop me a PM, will see what I can do

And with only 10 users they could also setup Duo Security for 2FA for the RDP box. For 10 users and less Duo Security is free.