Acquiring a deeper understanding of how virtual private networks (VPNs) operate can be a daunting task. It traditionally has required sorting through scattered information and deciphering technical standards that contain a potentially confusing assortment of acronyms and algorithms. But Cisco Technical Solutions Consultant Plamen Nedeltchev and Radoslav Ratchkov, senior software engineer at LSI Logic, are helping to make this task far less arduous by boiling down the complex mathematics of each VPN algorithm and defining their relationships to one another. . . .
Acquiring a deeper understanding of how virtual private networks (VPNs) operate can be a daunting task. It traditionally has required sorting through scattered information and deciphering technical standards that contain a potentially confusing assortment of acronyms and algorithms. But Cisco Technical Solutions Consultant Plamen Nedeltchev and Radoslav Ratchkov, senior software engineer at LSI Logic, are helping to make this task far less arduous by boiling down the complex mathematics of each VPN algorithm and defining their relationships to one another. Drawing from their white paper, IPsec-Based VPNs and Related Algorithms, this article focuses on the IP Security standard and a few other technologies deployed in commercially available VPNs. There's plenty more from Nedeltchev and Ratchkov at their Web site (ratchkov.com/vpn) on all the VPN algorithm mathematics as well as calculation tools to help network engineers deploy and troubleshoot VPN solutions.

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