Method and apparatus for accelerating CPE-based VPN transmissions over a wireless network
View Patent ↗The present invention generally relates to the acceleration of customer premises equipment based virtual private networks (CPE-VPN). To provide virtual private network service from an enterprise network to a mobile client in a secure manner apparatus and method are provided whereby VPN service is provided which allows the wireless network to use data acceleration techniques. This is accomplished by providing a VPN acceleration server that terminates VPN tunnel from the enterprise network, accelerates the data for wireless transmission then encrypts the data for transmission to the mobile client (VPN acceleration client) over an encrypted acceleration tunnel. The encrypted acceleration tunnel may use PKI encryption.
1. A method of securely accelerating customer premises equipment based virtual private network transmissions over a carrier network comprising the steps of:
establishing an encrypted acceleration tunnel between a VPN acceleration client and a VPN acceleration server in response to a VPN acceleration client request for information, the encrypted acceleration tunnel traversing a wireless network;
transmitting said VPN acceleration client's address and required data information to said VPN acceleration server over said encrypted acceleration tunnel;
establishing a VPN tunnel between said VPN acceleration server and a VPN switch, said VPN switch accessing a plurality of enterprise content servers, said plurality of enterprise content servers providing said required data information transmitted, wherein said encrypted acceleration tunnel and said VPN acceleration server utilize the same network layer in a standard OSI model;
communicating required data responding to said required data information from one of said plurality of enterprise content servers to said VPN switch;
transmitting said required data from said VPN switch to said VPN acceleration server over said VPN tunnel;
accelerating and encrypting said required data using wireless communication performance optimization by said VPN acceleration server;
transmitting said required data to said VPN acceleration client; and
decrypting said required data in response to said VPN acceleration client receiving said required data.
2. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the step of establishing an encrypted acceleration tunnel uses public key infrastructure (PKI) encryption.
3. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the required data information includes at least one of a VPN switch address, user name, and password.
4. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the encrypted VPN tunnel is an IPSec tunnel.
5. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the encrypted VPN tunnel is an MPLS tunnel.
6. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the encrypted VPN tunnel is a L2TP tunnel.
7. A method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the wireless communication performance optimization is selected from a group consisting of compression, protocol optimization, caching, traffic management and a combination thereof.
8. A VPN acceleration server for providing secure virtual private network service for wireless clients comprising:
a first module for terminating a virtual private network (VPN) tunnel to a VPN switch, said VPN switch accessing a plurality of enterprise content servers, said plurality of enterprise content servers providing required data information;
a second module for accelerating data for transmission over a wireless network using wireless communication performance optimization; and
a third module for terminating an encrypted acceleration tunnel to a wireless client whereby a secure virtual network service is provided between the VPN switch and the wireless client, for which acceleration of data on the wireless network is provided, wherein said encrypted acceleration tunnel and said virtual private network tunnel utilize the same network layer in a standard OSI model.
9. A server as claimed in claim 8 wherein the virtual private network tunnel is IPSec.
10. A server as claimed in claim 8 wherein the virtual private network tunnel is MPLS.
11. A server as claimed in claim 8 wherein the virtual private network tunnel is L2TP.
12. A server as claimed in claim 8 wherein the encrypted tunnel is public key infrastructure encrypted.