VPN cascades/multi-hop for latency improvement (with Wireguard)
From a latency of 200 ms, there are noticeable latency problems when using normal (remote maintenance) applications such as Windows Remote Desktop, TeamViewer, Anydesk and many other tools. As a result, many companies suffer from massive performance problems when working with remote offices or employees working remotely. The desired goal is simple: better performance from e.g. India or Russia when connecting to the company headquarters in Germany or the United States.
I have been working on this problem for a long time and after some time I was able to develop a solution.
For this, a VPN is connected in series, this is therefore a multi-hop connection or VPN cascade, which of course does not reduce the latency even increases initially.
Nevertheless, this multi-hop connection has advantages when working from a far distance. The only thing to keep in mind here is that the individual hops should lead to a reduction of the latency on a single route (between two points) to less than 200 ms.
So if you are in Australia, a stopover in Singapore or India could lead to an improvement in performance. With a clever concept, it is also possible to influence the route of the data traffic in this way. For example, a generally faster route can also be forced.
In my example, two additional hops are used. The problem here is immediately recognizable: From a computer only 1 VPN connection can be established at the same time. However, at least 2 connections are necessary to achieve an optimal result.
Therefore I decided to use two routers, which have a function as WireGuard client. I have connected the routers in series. So router 1 establishes a connection to intermediate station 1 while router 2 (to which the clients are connected) establishes a connection to intermediate station 2.
The result is that the second router establishes its VPN tunnel through the already established first VPN tunnel and the perceived latency when working with remote maintenance tools and other applications drops significantly. Furthermore, the additional encryption layers also offer other advantages in the area of IT security.
Do you need support in choosing the right hops and routes for your remote workers or do you want to improve performance? I will be happy to help you with all VPN related issues. You can reach me easily via my contact form.
4 Antworten zu “VPN cascades/multi-hop for latency improvement (with Wireguard)”
Hi.
I found this article interesting about multi hop for latency improvement. What hops/ routes would you suggest from Thailand to access UK servers with less latency?
Direct latency is about 288. Via Singapore its about 210. Any ideas maybe half way that would improve? Was thinking India, UAE or Turkey? Thanks.
I would recommend you to route the traffic over Singapore or India. Anyway a server in Singapore would have better Peerings around the world. Also the multi-hop is not made to reduce the real latency itself, its made to improve the “felt” latency. Routes with latency over 200ms are problematic with many applications – with this “trick” its two times 100 ms.
are you physically locating these in target countries or are your hops by physically side by side devices?
The devices which build the connection are all located (side by side) client side. The first device connects to the “hop” and the second decive connects to the final destination through the tunnel of the first device. Doing so gives you also the possibility to change the whole route of the traffic (very interesting if your ISP uses “cheap partners”). In reality the traffic will go from the client to the first hop with lets say 100ms latency and go out there (hop server) again with 100ms latency. The shown latency together is the same but the performance seems to be better for a lot of applications.