Adaptive transition between layer three and layer four network tunnels

摘要

Adaptive failover occurs between a Layer Three (L3) based network tunnel and a Layer Four (L4) based network tunnel. An example of a L4 based network tunnel is a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) tunnel and an example of a L3 based network tunnel is an Internet Protocol Security (IPSec) tunnel. SSL tunnels work through most firewalls and proxies, but may introduce latency and other performance problems. IPSec tunnels provide a more efficient performance, but may not work through some firewalls and proxies. The techniques include dynamically selecting a tunneling protocol in order to achieve a more efficient network tunnel performance when possible while maintaining consistent L3 connectivity from a variety of remote network environments.