Secure, Scalable Networking in the Cloud: The VyOS Advantage for PayLink on AWS

“VyOS gave us the cloud-native routing performance and VPN reliability we needed on AWS. Its simplicity, transparency, and full control made it an ideal fit for our infrastructure strategy.”
— Tedi Guri, Director of Information System, PayLink

Customer Overview

PayLink is a licensed third-party processor for card payments in Albania and the Balkan region, regulated by the Bank of Albania. Following today's challenges and standards in the card payment industry, PayLink offers a wide range of services in compliance with PCI standards and Global Payments Schemas requirements. Their platform facilitates secure financial transactions and serves major institutions, including banks and fintech players. With increasing cloud adoption, PayLink required a robust networking solution on AWS to support:

Regional VPNs: Secure, performant VPNs across regions
Encrypted Communication: Encrypted communication with its financial entities
Infrastructure Control: Full visibility and control of routing infrastructure in the cloud

Challenge

PayLink had previously relied on Cisco devices to handle VPN and routing requirements. But as workloads transitioned to AWS, they faced new demands:

Performance Requirements: VPN performance needed to meet growing regional traffic
Flexibility Needs: The solution had to be flexible, cloud-native, and vendor-neutral
Cost Constraints: Traditional proprietary solutions introduced high licensing costs and limited transparency

Additional requirements included:

Compliance needs such as detailed audit trails and strong encryption standards
Sub-100ms latency for real-time applications transitioning to the cloud

Why VyOS

VyOS quickly stood out during PayLink's evaluation due to its:

IPSec VPN performance: Stable and performant for encrypted inter-region connections, especially beneficial with AWS's strong routes toward Europe
Support without vendor lock-in: No hidden features—everything included in the base image
Easy onboarding: Support portal includes free LTS ISO for AWS deployment, allowing PayLink to test and deploy at no additional cost
Scalability path: Future upgrade to VyOS 1.5 LTS (with VPP & DPDK) promises significant VPN and routing acceleration—up to 17M PPS/core

Implementation

AWS Deployment Highlights:

Platform: VyOS deployed in AWS EC2 instances
Use Case: Primary use focused on IPSec VPN tunnels for secure financial traffic
Support Model: Standard support (Next Business Day SLA) included, with upgrade options to private chat and production/mission-critical tiers
Flexibility: Customer retains control of routing, tunneling, and firewall features within AWS

Technical Deployment Details:

Instance Configuration: Deployed on c5n.large instances, optimized for network performance with enhanced networking and up to 25 Gbps throughput
High Availability Design: Active-passive configuration across multiple AWS Availability Zones, using Route 53 health checks and Elastic IP reassignment for automated failover

Results

Key Outcomes:

Achieved secure, reliable VPN connectivity across AWS
Avoided high licensing fees from legacy vendors
Gained access to full feature set—no artificial limitations
Laid groundwork for future use of high-throughput networking with VPP/DPDK

Looking Ahead

Future upgrade to VyOS 1.5 LTS (with VPP & DPDK) promises significant VPN and routing acceleration—up to 17M PPS/core
Laid groundwork for future use of high-throughput networking with VPP/DPDK