The Cisco AIM-VPN/BP Virtual Private Network Module (VPN module) optimizes the router platform by providing increased performance over software-only encryption. This is done by offloading the encryption processing from the routers central processing unit (CPU). The VPN module is a hardware Layer 3 (IPSec) encryption module and provides DES(56-bit) and 3DES(168-bit) IPsec encryption for multiple T1s or E1s of bandwidth.