Simplifying Networking with Veeam

When it comes to connecting remote sites, branch offices or extending on-premises networks to the cloud that level of complexity has traditionally always been high. Networking has always been the most complex part of any IT platform. There has also always been a high level of cost associated with connecting sites…both from a hardware or a software point of view. There are also the man hours to ensure things are setup correctly and will continue to work. As well and that, security and performance are also important factors in any networking solution..

At VeeamOn in 2017, we announced the release candidate for Veeam Powered Network (Veeam PN) which in combination with our Restore to Azure functionality created a new solution to ease the complexities around extending an on-premises network to an Azure network to ensure connectivity during restoration scenarios. In December of that year, Veeam PN went generally available as a FREE solution.

What Veeam PN does well is present a simple and intuitive Web Based User Interface for the setup and configuration of site-to-site and point-to-site VPNs. Moving away from the intended use case, Veeam PN became popular in the IT enthusiast and home lab worlds as a simple and reliable way to remain connected while on the road, or to mesh together with ease networks that where spread across disparate platforms.

By utilizing OpenVPN under the surface and automating and orchestrating the setup of site-to-site and point-to-site networks, we leveraged a mature Open Source tool that offered a level of reliability and performance that suited most use cases. However, we didn’t want to stop there and looked at ways in which we could continue to enhance Veeam PN to make it more useful for IT organizations and start to look to increase underlying performance to maximize potential use cases.

Introducing Veeam Powered Network v2 featuring WireGuard®

With the release of Veeam PN v2, we have enhanced what is possible for site-to-site connectivity by incorporating WireGuard into the solution (replacing OpenVPN for site-to-site) as well as enhancing usability. We also added the ability to better connect to remote devices with the support of DNS for site-to-site connectivity.

WireGuard has replaced OpenVPN for site-to-site connectivity in Veeam PN v2 due to the rise of it in the Open Source world as a new standard in VPN technologies that offers a higher degree of security through enhanced cryptography and operates more efficiently, leading to increased performance and security. It achieves this by working in kernel and by using fewer lines of code (4000 compared to 600,000 in OpenVPN) and offers greater reliability when thinking about connecting hundreds of sites…therefore increasing scalability.

For a deeper look at why we chose WireGuard… have a read of my offical veeam.com blog. The story is very compelling!

Increased Security and Performance

By incorporating WireGuard into Veeam PN we have further simplified the already simple WireGuard setup and allow users of Veeam PN to consume it for site-to-site connectivity even faster via the Veeam PN Web Console. Security is always a concern with any VPN and WireGuard again takes a more simplistic approach to security by relying on crypto versioning to deal with cryptographic attacks… in a nutshell it is easier to move through versions of primitives to authenticate rather than client server negotiation of cipher type and key lengths.

Because of this streamlined approach to encryption in addition to the efficiency of the code WireGaurd can out perform OpenVPN, meaning that Veeam PN can sustain significantly higher throughputs (testing has shown performance increases of 5x to 20x depending on CPU configuration) which opens up the use cases to be for more than just basic remote office or homelab use. Veeam PN can now be considered as a way to connect multiple sites together and have the ability to transfer and sustain hundreds of Mb/s which is perfect for data protection and disaster recovery scenarios.

Other Enhancements

The addition of WireGuard is easily the biggest enhancement from Veeam PN v1, however there are a number of other enhancements listed below

DNS forwarding and configuring to resolve FQDNs in connected sites.

New deployment process report.

Microsoft Azure integration enhancements.

Easy manual product deployment.

Conclusion

Once again, the premise of Veeam PN is to offer Veeam customers a free tool that simplifies the traditionally complex process around the configuration, creation and management of site-to-site and point-to-site VPN networks. The addition of WireGuard as the site-to-site VPN platform will allow Veeam PN to go beyond the initial basic use cases and become an option for more business-critical applications due to the enhancements that WireGuard offers.

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