Performance Analysis of Firewall and Virtual Private Network (VPN) Usage in Video Conferencing Applications

Abstract

Rapid developments in information technologies have made these technologies indispensable elements of our lives with application areas such as e-government, e-commerce, e-health, e-learning. Particularly the global Covid-19 pandemic period has led to forced improvements in video conferencing applications, which enable users in different locations at the same time to communicate via video and audio over internet. Developments in technology, which cause the rapid increase of applications served over internet, also cause a significant increase in the number of devices connected to internet and the data traffic flowing over internet. As a result, the security needs of applications used over internet, such as video conferencing applications, are increasing in proportion to the increasing security threat risks. The use of firewall and VPN (Virtual Private Network) are the most basic security solutions for applications used over internet. A firewall is a device, which is positioned between a corporate network and the internet cloud, filtering incoming and outgoing traffic to and from the network according to defined rules. VPN, on the other hand, provides a secure point-to-point connection to a corporate network through the internet cloud. In this study, the effects of firewall and VPN usage in video conferencing applications were analyzed in terms of application performance. In video conferencing applications; since there is a real-time, bidirectional and large-scale data flow between the participants, delay and packet loss determine the performance of these applications. Analyzing how these applications perform when used with firewalls and VPN will guide further improvements in network protocols, components and related applications. In the study in which the simulation method was used, the data obtained from the simulation of different scenarios created with the OPNET tool were analyzed comparatively.

Keywords

• Network Performance
• OPNET
• Video Conferencing

Video Konferans Uygulamalarında Güvenlik Duvarı ve Sanal Özel Ağ (VPN) Kullanımının Performans Analizi

Abstract

Bilgi ve iletişim teknolojilerindeki süratli gelişmeler; e-devlet, e-ticaret, e-sağlık, e-öğrenme gibi uygulama alanlarıyla bu teknolojileri hayatımızın her alanının vazgeçilmez öğesi haline getirmiştir. Özellikle küresel Covid-19 salgın süreci; aynı anda farklı yerlerde bulunan kişilerin, internet üzerinden görüntülü ve sesli bir şekilde iletişim kurmalarını sağlayan video konferans uygulamalarında zorunlu gelişmelere yol açmıştır. İnternet üzerinden sunulan uygulamaların hızla yaygınlaşmasına sebep olan teknolojideki gelişmeler, aynı zamanda internete bağlı cihaz sayısında ve internet üzerinden akan veri trafiğinde çok ciddi artışlara sebep olmaktadır. Bunun neticesi olarak, video konferans uygulamaları gibi internet üzerinden kullanılan uygulamaların güvenlik ihtiyaçları da artan güvenlik tehdidi riskleriyle orantılı olarak artmaktadır. Güvenlik duvarı ve sanal özel ağ kullanımı, internet üzerinden kullanılan uygulamalar için en temel güvenlik çözümlerindendir. Güvenlik duvarı, kurumsal bir ağ ile internet bulutu arasına konumlandırılarak ağa gelen ve giden trafiği tanımlı kurallara göre filtreleyen cihazdır. Sanal özel ağ ise, kurumsal bir ağa, internet bulutu üzerinden noktadan noktaya güvenli bir bağlantı sağlar. Bu çalışmada, video konferans uygulamalarının güvenlik duvarı ve sanal özel ağ ile kullanımının uygulama performansına etkileri analiz edilmiştir. Video konferans uygulamalarında; katılımcılar arasında gerçek zamanlı, çift yönlü ve büyük boyutlu bir veri akışı olduğundan bu uygulamaların performansında gecikme ve paket kayıpları belirleyici olmaktadır. Bu uygulamaların güvenlik duvarı ve sanal özel ağ ile kullanımının performans analizinin yapılması ağ protokollerinde, ağ bileşenlerinde ve video konferans uygulamalarında daha sonra yapılabilecek iyileştirmeler için yol gösterici olacaktır. Benzetim metodunun kullanıldığı çalışmada, OPNET benzetim aracı ile oluşturulan farklı senaryoların benzetimiyle elde edilen veriler karşılaştırılmalı olarak analiz edilmiştir.

Keywords

• Ağ Performansı
• OPNET
• Video Konferans

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