RE: remote desktop question

["Kirk Brady" <Kirk.Brady () TeachersHealth com au>]

Hi,

i work with around 120 users, and i would like to share my experiences regarding this with you:

> > I see this advice often on this list.  I work with very small businesses 
> > (200 users and below) where number of servers / firewalls / routers, and 
> > budgets for same, are very small.  So I have some (very basic I'm 
> > afraid) questions on this subject:
> > -- Is there not a slowness / performance hit when forcing users to 
> > access a Terminal Server via a VPN connection?
not at all noticeable i believe. if you have broadband (256k+) the rdp session is quite responsive. the faster the 
connection on both sides the better - the vpn overhead doesnt seem to affect the speed that much at all. this is using 
both pptp and ipsec (l2tp) vpn's

> > -- This will require VPN client software on all client machines right?  
> > Or is the in-built MS VPN connection stuff considered acceptably secure 
> > in this scenario?
i just use the build in ms vpn connectoid, with an ms rras/ias server on the other end. once connected users surf to an 
internal website with the terminal server weblet hosted

> > -- Or should we look at SSL VPN for this? 
i played around with ssl vpn's to try and make it simpler for the end user - in all honestly i did not think it was 
THAT much better. speedwise it was comparable (in some cases it was slower), and still required the use of a username 
and password - the ms build in vpn connectoids ask for little more than that and with a crib sheet, most users seem ok

hth
kirk