VPN - ADSL/shaped/unshaped question

[undesign]

Not sure if this is the right sub-forum (and apologies for the n00bness), but my wife has started working from home recently - she works for a large corporate. She connects into a corporate VPN - from where she accesses email, SAP and Office documents. My question is whether this services is ADSL shaped?

Speeds is typically OK, but does get sluggish every now and then. I have a 4Mbps line, currently using WebAfrica's prepaid shaped ADSL.

Thanks

 

[syntax]

I am pretty sure the vpn traffic would receive a lower priority than normal http/mail traffic.
Also keep in mind that the company she is connecting to could have a QOS policy determining vpn traffic as well.

Is she using a vpn connection to then rdp to her desktop?

 

[medraught]

You should also take into account the load on the other side's line. Unless they have a dedicated line for VPN connections, you'd be contending with whatever normal day to day traffic is in transit on the wire. In typical cases where companies do manage everything through one line (and have implemented QOS) you'd be contending with whatever mail traffic (usually high) and browsing traffic (also high) is on the line. Add hosted web and FTP services and whatever other junk the company allows through their infrastructure and you start having lines running flat out.

Also, taking the above into account, you'd be likely to see performance degradation during peak business hours (typically 8 to 11-ish and 1-ish to 5).

Just my take on things as I've experienced them...

 

[undesign]

I am pretty sure the vpn traffic would receive a lower priority than normal http/mail traffic.
Also keep in mind that the company she is connecting to could have a QOS policy determining vpn traffic as well.

Thanks, so getting unshaped makes sense. Although speeds are generally OK I want to optimise as much as possible.

Is she using a vpn connection to then rdp to her desktop?

I'm not clear on what you are asking o), but she accesses with VPN and then has a "remote desktop" kinda thingy p). When she's on this "remote" desktop she doesn't have access to her laptop's hdd for instance, only the network drives/folders at work.

You should also take into account the load on the other side's line. Unless they have a dedicated line for VPN connections, you'd be contending with whatever normal day to day traffic is in transit on the wire. In typical cases where companies do manage everything through one line (and have implemented QOS) you'd be contending with whatever mail traffic (usually high) and browsing traffic (also high) is on the line. Add hosted web and FTP services and whatever other junk the company allows through their infrastructure and you start having lines running flat out.

Also, taking the above into account, you'd be likely to see performance degradation during peak business hours (typically 8 to 11-ish and 1-ish to 5).

Just my take on things as I've experienced them...

I don't know what QOS is, but I get the gist of what your saying.

Thank you both for replying. I'll try unshaped and see if it makes a difference.

 

[medraught]

QOS means Quality of Service (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_of_service)

In a nutshell, it's the mechanism of guaranteeing service levels across a network device. ie. dedicate 50% of the line capacity to HTTP, 25% to mail, etc, etc...

 

[syntax]

Unshaped might make a difference, but understand that it is also reliant on the companies line usage as mentioned. You can have all the bandwidtth you want, if the end point of the connection is saturated, ur screwed.

BTW, QOS = quality of service. It is used to guarantee or limit connection speeds based on service/protocol etc.