Re: Adding a VPN gateway to my SBS 2003 network

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Dan Irwin wrote:
I'm sorry if i wasn't clear in what i meant before. The client is a
dental office and the interface for the practice management program
they use has all sorts of animations and images that it uses to
simplify the things that the staff want to get done. Because of the
way the program is made it runs painstakingly slow over Remote Desktop
Connection(even when on 256 colors and everything disabled) even
though it only needs a small amount of data from the database stored
on the network.

Imagine you have to use adobe photoshop to retouch photos stored on
your office network while at home; transferring the photos from the
server to your home computer and running photoshop locally will be
much faster than trying to use photoshop over Remote Desktop
Connection won't it? Thats the same issue I have here, only I can't e-
mail a patients chart to my home computer, I have to connect to the
database in the office.

Am i missing something? Is there more to RWW than the exchange web
interface, remote access to sharepoint stuff, and remote desktop
connection?

No, that's about it.

Does the documentation for this program say that it's safe to use over unreliable network connections, or failing that, does it use an SQL server-based database?

Many simple database applications use shared access to a file, using the standard SMB/CIFS protocol, rather than a multi-user database server. If so, a network disruption while writing to the file is likely to break it, and it should not be accessed across the Internet. End of story. If it is SQL based, or uses some other kind of robust proprietary server which only handles queries, it may be physically safe to operate this way. If so, there may be provision for encryption and/or use of digital certificates which would make it fairly safe in security terms to operate directly across the Internet.

If it appears physically safe to use it, but insecure, then a VPN can be used. Depending on the state of the law concerning the data involved, VPN from a random PC may not be a permissible security risk, and the practice might need to consider buying PCs for the purpose, which could be made domain members and not used for any other purpose. Either way, the SBS RRAS packet filter should be used to restrict the kind of traffic possible.

SBS can terminate PPTP VPN connections, and any Windows or other PC can connect to it. The costs don't get lower than that, unless dedicated domain-member machines prove to be necessary.
.

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