Performance evaluation of security architecture for wireless local area networks by indexed based policy method

Abstract

In this paper, we investigated existing and proposed WLAN security technologies designed to improve the IEEE 802.11 standard by applying security policies. We have extensively analyzed the effect of crypto parameters over WLAN based on packet level characteristics by applying the security policy to an individual packet. We have also analyzed the effect of TCP and UDP traffic over our proposed WLAN testbed architecture. We found that TCP and UDP traffic behaves erratically, when policy index changes causing drastic degradation of system performance. In this paper, we present a detailed study of performance overhead caused by the most widely used security protocols such as WEP, IPSEC VPN and IEEE 801.1X. Furthermore, we analyze the effectiveness of such solutions, based on measurement of policy indexing model implementation. Performance measurement indicates that the 802.1X and VPN policy based method can be used based on the service time in future wireless systems, while it can simultaneously provide both the necessary flexibility to network operators and a high level of confidence to end users