This paper investigates methods to secure communication between employee devices and the company network, namely virtual private networks (VPN), specifically for mobile devices using the Android operating system. Two widely used open-source protocols are compared for use in remote work, OpenVPN and Wire-Guard, to determine which has the more secure and efficient encryption method, and how these affect their performance. Three performance tests were done; a bandwidth test, a latency test, and a file transfer test to simulate a task employees would encounter during remote work. The tests were done by hosting the VPN servers using Linux containers, and a OnePlus 11 as the Android device.OpenVPN outperformed WireGuard with an average bandwidth of 131 Mbps compared to 124 Mbps using a WiFi connection, while WireGuard gave better results during the latency test, having an average latency of 25.86 ms compared to 28.62 ms using a WiFi connection. Despite OpenVPN showing better bandwidth results, WireGuard was significantly faster during the file transfer tests, performing the tasks in two-thirds of the time it took using OpenVPN. Based on the results from the file transfer test and having similar encryption strength as OpenVPN, WireGuard is concluded to be the preferred choice for remote work.

Containerization has gained popularity for deploying applications in a lightweight environment. Kubernetes and Docker have gained a lot of dominance for scalable deployments of applications in containers. Usually, kubernetes clusters are deployed within a single shared network. For high availability of the application, multiple kubernetes clusters are deployed in multiple regions, due to which the number of kubernetes clusters keeps on increasing over time. Maintaining and managing mul-tiple kubernetes clusters is a challenging and time-consuming process for system administrators or DevOps engineers. These issues can be addressed by deploying a kubernetes cluster in a multi-region environment. A multi-region kubernetes de-ployment reduces the hassle of handling multiple kubernetes masters by having onlyone master with worker nodes spread across multiple regions. In this thesis, we investigated a multi-region kubernetes cluster’s network performance by deploying a multi-region kubernetes cluster with worker nodes across multiple openstack regions and tunneled using wireguard(a VPN protocol). A literature review on the common factors that influence the network performance in a multi-region deployment is conducted for the network performance metrics. Then, we compared the request-response time of this multi-region kubernetes cluster with the regular kubernetes cluster to evaluate the performance of the deployed multi-region kubernetescluster. The results obtained show that a kubernetes cluster with worker nodes ina single shared network has an average request-response time of 2ms. In contrast, the kubernetes cluster with worker nodes in different openstack projects and regions has an average request-response time of 14.804 ms. This thesis aims to provide a performance comparison of the kubernetes cluster with and without wireguard, fac-tors affecting the performance, and an in-depth understanding of concepts related to kubernetes and wireguard.

Containerization is widely recognized as a form of lightweight virtualization in the cloud. Due to its reliability, maturity, and rich capabilities, kubernetes has established itself as the de-facto standard for deployments and maintenance of containers. The availability of a kubernetes cluster for a cloud-native application would depend on the availability of the zone or region where the nodes are running. In general, the kubernetes cluster is deployed in a single shared network, but for higher availability, the nodes of the kubernetes cluster can be deployed in multiple regions. Deploying a multi-region kubernetes cluster aids in providing high availability for the service, allowing the data to be located closer to users, even when they are dispersed globally. However, with greater benefits come greater challenges, and networking in multi-region kubernetes clusters has proven to be a complex issue. Usually, kubernetes in a multi-region environment can be achieved by using tunneling across the worker nodes that are located in multiple regions and by using the VPN protocols as an overlay network. In this thesis, I investigated the performance of different VPN solutions in a multi-region kubernetes cluster and examine how these VPN solutions support kubernetes deployment. A literature review is conducted to identify the most common factors influencing VPN performance and to gather information on the differences between VPN solutions. I compared the response times of the multi-region Kubernetes cluster deployed with VPN solutions to the response times of the single shared region Kubernetes cluster also deployed with VPN solutions. This comparison allowed me to evaluate the performance of the VPN solution in a multi-region Kubernetes cluster. The aim of this thesis is to present the most influential factors, an overview of proposed VPN solutions, and performance comparisons of different VPN solutions in a multi-region kubernetes cluster.

In recent years, the interest and utilization of VPNs and cloud computing have surged, which has led to the development of Cloud VPNs. Cloud VPNs are often used to give employers access to company resources over a secured and trusted network, but individuals can also use them. Cloud computing offers numerous advantages, including cost efficiency, scalability, security, and reliability. Companies and individuals widely use it to streamline operations, reduce expenditures, and leverage technologies without the need to maintain on-premise infrastructure. Cloud-based solutions impose specific requirements on technologies designed to operate in the cloud, which include security, efficient resource management, and high network availability and performance. In this thesis, we will analyze and evaluate the network performance impact that Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure, two of the market-leading cloud platforms, have on the VPN services OpenVPN and WireGuard while considering associated operational costs and user complexity. The network performance impact is evaluated through measuring the throughput, latency, jitter, and packet loss. We have performed experiments divided into three setups, each simulating different traffic patterns, and VPN usage scenarios. Throughout these experiments, we observed and documented the user complexity related to setup, installation, and configuration processes. Our findings indicate that Azure has the best overall network throughput across all setups, fewer retransmissions, and fewer packet losses. Conversely, AWS exhibits lower latency and jitter. Additionally, our assessment of operational costs and user complexity reveals that Azure offers lower associated costs but a higher user complexity. Furthermore, our experiments identified that WireGuard, when paired with Azure, offers the best VPN solution.

This study aimed to identify the differences between state-of-the-art VPN solutions on different operating systems. It was done because a novel VPN protocol is in the early stages of release and a comparison of it, to other current VPN solutions is interesting. It is interesting because current VPN solutions are well established and have existed for a while and the new protocol stirs the pot in the VPN field. Therefore a contemporary comparison between them could aid system administrators when choosing which VPN to implement. To choose the right VPN solution for the occasion could increase performance for the users and save costs for organizations who wish to deploy VPNs. With the remote workforce increasing issues of network reliability also increases, due to wireless connections and networks beyond the control of companies. This demands an answer to the question how do VPN solutions differ in performance with stable and unstable networks? This work attempted to answer this question. This study is generally concerning VPN performance but mainly how the specific solutions perform under unreliable network conditions.It was achieved by researching past comparisons of VPN solutions to identify what metrics to analyze and which VPN solutions have been recommended. Then a test bed was created in a lab network to control the network when testing, so the different VPN implementations and operating systems have the same premise. To establish baseline results, performance testing was done on the network without VPNs, then the VPNs were tested under reliable network conditions and then with unreliable network conditions. The results of that were compared and analyzed. The results show a difference in the performance of the different VPNs, also there is a difference on what operating system is used and there are also differences between the VPNs with the unreliability aspects switched on. The novel VPN protocol looks promising as it has overall good results, but it is not conclusive as the current VPN solutions can be configured based on what operating system and settings are chosen. With this set-up, VPNs on Linux performed much better under unreliable network conditions when compared to setups using other operating systems. The outcome of this work is that there is a possibility that the novel VPN protocol is performing better and that certain combinations of VPN implementation and OS are better performing than others when using the default configuration. This works also pointed out how to improve the testing and what aspects to consider when comparing VPN implementations.