Office Remote Access VPN and Terminal Servers
Providing secure and simple remote access to office network resources for remote workers can be a difficult and expensive task but does not have to be out of reach for small businesses.
All our Remote Access solutions are able to work with a mixture of Windows, Mac OSX and Linus/Unix clients.
If you have multiple office sites or remote workers, we can help setup routers at each office to provide transparent access between sites and external VPN (Virtual Private Network) connections for remote workers to securely access the office network.
This VPN deals with the security aspects of the remote connection and any required NAT traversal without any forwarded ports in the modem or similar but many local network applications (accounting, document management, CRM etc) are slow to access directly via an Internet connection and may not perform well like this without a Terminal Server or similar remote desktop session at the office.
If there are applications on the office network that remote workers need to access, a Terminal Server can be used to allow multiple users to login and access the office network resources.
A Terminal Server is a more stable way to access local network applications from an Internet connection as it is only sending screen information and if the connection is lost, the user can still log back into the same session without losing any work.
Terminal Servers are available running Linux, Windows or Mac OSX and clients on either platform can access a server on either platforms.
The best option in general is the Linux based NXServer.
This system uses SSH for all communications between the client and server so all traffic is inherently encrypted in this tunnel and is significantly faster than other VNC based solutions and only requires one forwarded port in the modem for all users. The NXServer also allows remote client volume mounting and printing to a client local printer from inside the Terminal Session so a remote client can copy files to and from the server and their client computer easily while still well secured against attacks during the Internet transit.
The recommended version runs the Xubuntu Linux distribution and FreeNX server (open Source NX server). XFCE4 is a lightweight GUI which is quicker for remote sessions and uses less RAM and other resources for each user session. This system also includes WINE, a Windows compatibility system to run many Windows applications, Firefox (web browser) and Thunderbird (email), LibreOffice or OpenOffice (Open Source equivalents of MS Office) and access to the many thousands of applications in the Ubuntu repositories.
Being a Linux based system, the NXServer also insulates the client machines from many Virus and Malware attacks if used for web browser and email access.
The NXServer system is very scalable and has no license cost per user or similar. Supporting larger numbers of users is only a question of server capacity and management and this lends itself well to large or small scale Desktop Vuirtualsation with clients across many platforms (Windows, Mac OSX, Linux, iPad and iPhone, Android phones and pads) and efficient, secure remote access.
A basic VPN border router to allow remote connections to the office network starts at $330 fully configured and a Terminal Server starts at $440 on Linux or Mac OSX 10.4 and $770 for a Windows XP (not MS product) Terminal Server both with 5 users on hte Mac OSX and Windows version and unlimited users on the Linux NX Server.
This pricing does not include the hardware and existing or new PC based hardware can be used.
The pricing can vary dramatically depending on numbers of users and existing systems with the Mac OSX or Windows Terminal Servers so please contact us for a quote.