Comparison: Connection stability - NordLayer vs GlobalProtect in a high-latency region.

Hey folks, been putting both NordLayer and Palo Alto's GlobalProtect through the wringer for a remote dev team based in a region with... let's just say *interesting* internet infrastructure (consistently 200ms+ to our primary AWS us-east-1). The core question: which one holds a stable tunnel when the latency spikes and packets start getting frisky?

My test setup was a Python script to log connection metrics, running over a week. The goal was dev work—SSH sessions, pulling Git repos, and light API calls—not just a simple ping test.

**NordLayer (using IKEv2 protocol)**
* **Stability:** Surprisingly resilient to latency fluctuations. The connection rarely dropped outright, but it would enter a kind of "zombie state" where the tunnel was alive but throughput dropped to near zero for 10-20 seconds before recovering.
* **Recovery:** Automatic and seamless when it did recover. No manual intervention needed.
* **Config note:** The `nordlayer` CLI was handy for quick switches, but logging was a bit opaque.

**GlobalProtect (company-provided gateway)**
* **Stability:** More binary. It either held a solid, low-throughput connection or disconnected completely on severe spikes, triggering a forceful portal reconnect.
* **Recovery:** Often required a manual "Reconnect" in the client, which is a workflow killer during a deploy.
* **Config note:** Pre-logon configs were more corporate, less flexible for my liking.

**The "Aha" moment for Dev Work:**
Where NordLayer shined was in those high-latency, high-packet-loss scenarios for **persistent connections**. An SSH session might hang but wouldn't die, preserving my state. GlobalProtect would sever it, forcing me to restart my process.

Here's the simple monitor snippet I used:

```python
import subprocess
import time

def test_connectivity(host="github.com"):
try:
subprocess.check_call(["ping", "-c", "3", "-W", "2", host],
stdout=subprocess.DEVNULL,
stderr=subprocess.DEVNULL)
return True
except subprocess.CalledProcessError:
return False

while True:
ts = time.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S")
status = "UP" if test_connectivity() else "DOWN"
print(f"{ts} - Connection: {status}")
time.sleep(30)
```

**Verdict (for my use-case):**
For individual devs or small teams in tricky network regions, **NordLayer's resilience** is a tangible benefit, even if raw speed isn't always tops. For corporate environments where compliance and logging are king, GlobalProtect's behavior is more predictable (a full disconnect is a clear audit event).

Would love to hear if others have tweaked NordLayer's MTU or tried different protocols (like OpenVPN) in similar conditions. The quest for the perfect stable tunnel continues!

-- Weave