Hello Everyone,
I have a situation that I need some opinions on. I'll give the quick synopsis of what I have. I work for a small construction company. We have a few part time estimators that work on very sporadic basis. We were looking for a way to allow remote connection so these estimators could download plans, papers etc from their home So we set up an FTP server.
Then the next problem occurred. A lot of the programs we use have unique file extensions to that program. A lot of which cannot even be open by any other program other than the one that created it. So the next step in the evolution was to find some other sort of remote connection so that we could use the programs that are on our machines from home/on the road.
We are running (1) dell server with windows server 2003 that services about 5 computers running either Vista or 7. The Server and DSL modem are connected to a wired/wireless router (half of the PCs are hard lined half are on WiFi.) We are set up as a workgroup since there are so few computers.
So it's a pretty basic setup.
The first thing I looked into was Microsoft`s RDC But from what I can tell it's not made to get to a computer that isn't directly connected to the gateway. I.E. all the computers are hooked up to the server which is connected to the modem out. So I'm assuming you would have to RDC to the server, then RDC from the server to the machine on the network. So that's out of the question.
my suggestion was setting up a VPN but it has been YEARS since I took any kind of networking class (started my CCNA in 2003 and only took 3 courses.) so I don't know if a VPN would be optimal.
I know there are services you can buy such as gotomypc.com but we are trying to get away from web based connection.
Any suggestions would be great. Thanks! :good:
I have a situation that I need some opinions on. I'll give the quick synopsis of what I have. I work for a small construction company. We have a few part time estimators that work on very sporadic basis. We were looking for a way to allow remote connection so these estimators could download plans, papers etc from their home So we set up an FTP server.
Then the next problem occurred. A lot of the programs we use have unique file extensions to that program. A lot of which cannot even be open by any other program other than the one that created it. So the next step in the evolution was to find some other sort of remote connection so that we could use the programs that are on our machines from home/on the road.
We are running (1) dell server with windows server 2003 that services about 5 computers running either Vista or 7. The Server and DSL modem are connected to a wired/wireless router (half of the PCs are hard lined half are on WiFi.) We are set up as a workgroup since there are so few computers.
So it's a pretty basic setup.
The first thing I looked into was Microsoft`s RDC But from what I can tell it's not made to get to a computer that isn't directly connected to the gateway. I.E. all the computers are hooked up to the server which is connected to the modem out. So I'm assuming you would have to RDC to the server, then RDC from the server to the machine on the network. So that's out of the question.
my suggestion was setting up a VPN but it has been YEARS since I took any kind of networking class (started my CCNA in 2003 and only took 3 courses.) so I don't know if a VPN would be optimal.
I know there are services you can buy such as gotomypc.com but we are trying to get away from web based connection.
Any suggestions would be great. Thanks! :good:
