Part 4 – Remote Working
Everyone knows that allowing your employees to work from somewhere else other than your office has many benefits.
From a business point of view first and foremost you can save on office space – perhaps reconfiguring your office to a place where people can come in to collaborate flexibly rather than sitting in cubes. The saving here is pretty easy to calculate in terms of square footage not being rented, moreover you need less furniture, less maintenance staff, less electricity, which all means less expenditure.
From an employee viewpoint, you don’t have a commute so you could save several hours per day, you can start work earlier, finish later and still be home earlier than ever!
Also as I understand, people are more productive working from home. I am not an expert in this area so I will take it that it is probably true – just the fact you cant be in relentless meetings all day is a bonus.
What Are The Basics To Getting This Running?
A lot of what you need depends on what you want your users to be able to do when they work away. In a simple scenario they may require access to documents, they will want to run some specific applications (other than standard office apps which would be installed locally) and they will require email access. Here is how you might choose to deliver this:
Documents – the two most common ways are either to provide VPN access to your corporate network which will require at least at VPN server at the office end and a client on the user side . Once the VPN is connected files can be accessed using the same drives that you use when in the office. The downside is when file structures are large or you need to move lots of files around, it can be very slow over DSL connections. The second option is to use an intranet document management store such as SharePoint which can either be exposed on the internet (so no VPN required) or kept internal (VPN required). A web system will work well when users need to upload / download documents, work on them for a while and then move on to the next. Normally version control and document management features such as check in / check out are included to save multiple users editing the same documents at the same time.
Applications – if the application is traditional client / server type and doesn’t require very much bandwidth then you might get away with running the client over a VPN so it can connect to the server. If it has heavy duty network requirements then delivering the client component via terminal services will probably be your best bet. Here you have several choices as you could connect via VPN, then connect to the server via a remote desktop, or you could put the server directly on the internet and connect to the service without using the VPN to establish a remote desktop or you could finally host the Remote Desktop client on a web site that connects into the corporate network. If the application is web based or hosted (see my next blog Part 5 for more details) then the key applications may not even be on your corporate network which makes life even easier as all the users need is most likely a web browser.
Email – Microsoft Exchange provides many ways to get at your email, but if a user is going to work heavily on email , then the best choice by far is using a full Outlook client configured with RPC over HTTPS. By using this technique you don’t need a VPN up all the time and it feels like you are sitting in the office. Alternatively you can still run it over a VPN connection if it happens to be up for other reasons. Outlook Web Access also provides a great solution, but I find that it is better for brief email spells or a quick check. It’s a great solution but I still prefer the full client. The extra benefit of using RPC over HTTPS is that once you are set up server side it is just a few seconds of effort to have your Windows Mobile or Apple iPhone connected to your corporate email too. No middleware or Enterprise servers required, it works straight out of the box, mobile data plans not withstanding.
Coming Soon. Direct Access
Now here is a really exciting development, that builds on the discussion – Direct Access technology in Windows 7.
For any one who uses Outlook with RPC over HTTPS you will now how liberating and flexible it is – wherever you are in the world as long as you have an internet connection Outlook behaves as if it is on the corporate network without you knowing any different, all over an encrypted connection and no VPN needed. With Direct Access you get the same advantages but now for the whole remote experience not just email. You can work on company systems, files, intranets, email, everything as if you are connected directly and without a need for a VPN. No clunky VPN clients, connection processes or VPN devices at the business end. Direct Access will therefore save money on network hardware.
The best bit is from a management point of view the laptop appears as if it is on the corporate network and you can apply group policies, deploy software, patches or anything else just as if the computer was in the office.
The only small downside is you need Windows Server 2008 R2 in place at the back end and of course, Windows 7 as the client. Once these two platforms are more common, you will be getting all the solutions above solved with the purchase of software you would have bought anyway.
For more information on Remote Working, please visit www.squeezetech.com or contact the author.
