A Comparative Analysis of Additional Overhead Imposed by Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) on IPv4 and IPv6 Enabled Communication

IPSec, an Internet layer three (3)-security protocol suite is often characterising with introducing an additional space and processing overhead when implemented on a network for secured communication using either internet protocol version 4 or 6; IPv4 or IPv6. The use of Internet protocol security (IPSec) on IPv4 is an alternative that offers solutions and addresses the security vulnerabilities in network layer of the open system interconnect (OSI) and transmission control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP) protocol stack. In IPv6, IPSec is one among many other features added to the earlier Internet protocol to enhance efficiency and security. This paper, set as its objective to reports on the impact of processing and space overhead introduced by IPSec on both IPv4 and IPv6 in relation to packet end-to-end delay based on different IPSec transformations with different authentication and encryption algorithms deployed in different scenarios simulated using NS2. The experiment result reveals that the cost of IPSec added overhead is relatively small when smaller packet sizes are involved for both protocols in comparison with large packet sizes that were IPSec protected with the same configuration as the smaller packet, unless in the cases whereby the packet was very large which has to be fragmented. This paper can therefore, serve as a guide for network administrators to trade up between processing cost and larger address space specifically for transmission involving larger IP packets.