Due to a new regulatory requirement, ABC Company must now encrypt all WAN transmissions. When speaking with the network administrator, the security administrator learns that the existing routers…

Inline network encryption devices are dedicated hardware appliances inserted between the router and the WAN link that handle all encryption and decryption operations independently, completely offloading cryptographic overhead from the router's CPU so routing performance is unaffected by the new encryption mandate.

SSL acceleration appliances optimize SSL/TLS processing for web application traffic only and do not address general WAN-layer network encryption requirements.

Requiring applications to use encryption shifts processing burden to application servers and endpoints but does not address the WAN transmission encryption mandate or reduce load on the routers.

Adding an encryption module to the router still consumes the router's processing resources, and with the router already at minimum processing capacity, this does not adequately minimize performance impact.