Customer sez VPN connection is too slow...

Hello, and thanks for any opinions and insight y'all may be able to provide...

We are working with a retail-type pager/cell phone place with two locations. Both Locations are hooked up to AT&T broadband. They are about three miles apart...
Location 1 is their main location which houses a small (4 or 5 workstation) network based on Win2000 server. The server itself is a 1400mhz tbird with 512MB RAM.
Location 2 is the expansion branch with one machine only. A chumpy emachine, but anyway...

So they have this software that keeps track of beeper activation and billing, etc. The database is on the server, and the client runs on the point-of-sale machines at their main location AND (the fun part) at location #2.

Location #2 has a VPN connection back to the server at location #1 which they manually connect to before using that software in order to process certain transactions.

Amazingly, this system actually works, but the guy is wondering if we can speed this thang up. I guess it is taking too long between entering the transaction and hearing back from the server, popping the drawer, etc...

BUT- he is saying like ten to twenty seconds... This seems reasonable to me for the cicumstances. I told him VPN connections have more overhead and whatnot due to the fact that you have to establish the tunnel and add more encryption to the packets, etc... but I said I would research it in the meantime.

I was thinking more bandwidth might be a solution... perhaps DSL with a guaranteed upstream? Or could there be another solution like a some kind of dedicated line from the phone company?

<h2>How do other businesses do this?</h2>


Thanks Team!

10 to 20 seconds seems a tad slow, but should by no means be unacceptable. A frame relay should speed this up by not requiring the encryption of VPN, however they usually cost MUCH more than AT&T broadband. I've had similar complaints about my VPN but when i show them the cost differential they always say that it's not worth the extra $ for a few seconds....

p.s. What does it say about us as a society where a 30 second wait is 'too long'

we use netscreen over COX cable at 2 locations in providence. it took about 2 days but after they sync'd everything works perfectly..

Another thought, PCanywhere or VNC on the e-machine to the host with the database, it will cut time off also....

I think I would go frame-relay myself. Even better if you could get a dry pair run from the remote to host location, you could run your own high speed symmetrical dsl connection without using the phone company CLEC, now I have to dig up that link . . . or if you have line of sight a nice encrypted 802.11b shot which requires no monthly charges either, but a couple low-power linux boxes at either end to en/decrypt the signal.

Found the link <a href="http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20010823.html" target="_blank">for DIY DSL</a>

For a single machine (even an eMachine) running only POS software the VPN should be more than adequate. Here, we run seven offices through VPN connections. Each office will have 10-20 machines, all running terminal emulation from a UNIX server at the corporate office. While we are not using broadband for any of the internet connections, we do use wireless, ADSL, IDSL, and fiber. The speeds on these connections are excellent. We also use dedicated VPN hardware, firewalls with built-in VPN support, to control the connections, so there is no dedicated server. Like you suggested already, it could be your internet medium. If it is possible, just try another service for a month and see how it affects the speed of the program.