Date: February 28, 2006
Subject: Remotely Accessing Corporate Resources

Use of computers for business has spread far beyond the walls of the office with many employees having portable computers, multiple home systems and access to high speed internet. With resources such as these becoming increasingly widespread it is possible, and occasionally desirable, for employees to work from wherever they find themselves; be that on a business trip or from home with a sick child. Typically uses of remotely accessing corporate resources could be to remotely:

- send & receive business email

- send documents to corporate printers

- access data on corporate servers

- administer network infrastructure

- control a server or workstation

There are two primary purposes for which business resources may be used from a remote location: Remote Access and Remote Control.

1 - Remote Access is of most use to employees requiring remote access to local business resources. It allows them to access local business resources from any location as though they were physically present at the business. Two primary methods of remotely accessing business resources are Virtual Private Networking and Terminal Services

1.a - Virtual Private Networking (VPN) - Using VPN from a remote location the user of that computer has direct access to all network resources to which their login credentials gives them access (such as data, email or printers). In this manner the remote system appears to be physically connected to the business network with only a slight delay to indicate that a remote connection is being used. VPN is essentially a private "tunnel" between the remote workstation and the local business resource. All data transmitted along the VPN tunnel is encrypted.

 

1.b - Terminal Services - Terminal Services allows individual remote access to a session maintained by a Terminal Server. Many clients of our popular T4 TimeSaver software choose to install it to a Terminal Server which each user can access from their workstation. In effect the Terminal Server is "serving" applications and data to a workstation acting as a "terminal." An example of this in action can be found in most modern libraries where a computer terminal accesses and processes data supplied to it by a central server.

2 - Remote Control is generally used either for administrative purposes or to give a support technician remote access to a local resource. Remote Control gives the remote user direct control a specific business resource from any location. A typical program used for remote control is: Remote Desktop, which is bundled with most current versions of Windows.

2.a - Remote Desktop - Remote Desktop allows a user to remotely access and control a business computer as though they were seated at that computer's keyboard. The remote user's access to the workstation will be limited only by the restrictions placed upon their log on credentials. On a typical workstation only one user may be logged in at any one time so a user accessing a workstation through Remote Desktop will automatically cause any other user to log off.

 

2.b - Internet Utilities - Various internet based utilities are also available to allow functionality similar, or even superior, to Remote Desktop. In these cases the remote connection can only be established with the assistance of someone with physical access to the system in question.

Finally, A Word On Security - For any of the above to be truly effective proper security measures must be implemented. Employees and consultants should keep their access credentials private and should not access business resources from unsecured remote locations (such as wireless hotspots with minimal or no security or networks whose security settings are unknown). Additionally, any firewall installed between the local business resource and the internet (whether a software or hardware firewall) must be configured to give the desired protocol access to the local business network in order for any communication to be established.

While this is not an exhaustive guide to remote networking I do hope that it has given you some ideas about how you might be able to better utilize both your businesses resources the the people who use them.

Previous issues of the ELM Bulletin are available from our website.

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