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Case Study - Connecting a remote work force with
Terminal Services
SJG - The Spelman & Johnson Group is a specialized executive search firm based in Easthampton, MA. In its 15 years of partnering with client institutions, SJG has placed hundreds of administrators in colleges and universities throughout the United States. SJG came to Innovative Business Systems in 2004 for a solution to a business problem. The issue concerned their remote work force – with employees located all over the country, sharing files consisted of emails with file attachments being sent back and forth, creating multiple local copies of the same file. There was no true server in place that stored all of their shared files, nor was there a way for the remote work force to access these files. Employees needed 24x7 access to information, and this was not possible. IBS met with SJG and carefully analyzed their current computing environment to come up with a solution that would be right for their business. IBS proposed 2 servers – one was a Windows Small Business Server with Exchange (which allowed for shared contacts and calendars in Outlook and the ability to use Outlook Web access, among other features), and the second was a server to specifically run an application called “Terminal Services”. Terminal Services is a component of Microsoft Windows operating systems that allows a user to access applications or data stored on a remote computer over a network connection. Terminal Services is Microsoft's take on server-centric computing, which allows multiple individual users to access network resources easily. Terminal Services allows: · the sharing of applications and desktops over the network · administrators to take control of, and manage, a computer from their desk · the centralization and management of applications
For those needing remote access to data, Terminal Services differs from a VPN (Virtual Private Network). For a remote user with a VPN connection & high speed internet access, remote access to network drives and files is possible. However, when accessing these files, all application activity is being sent across your internet connection. In cases where you are querying a database for information, for example, this can be extremely slow. With Terminal Services (which comes with any Microsoft 2000 or 2003 server and can be activated with licensing) the remote user creates a virtual session as a workstation on the network. With Terminal Services, in the example of the user querying a database remotely, the querying is done locally, so the speed will be much faster. Application data is not being pumped across your internet connection; instead only keystroke and mouse clicks travel from client to server, and the screen shots are sent from the server back to the client’s remote display.
To further streamline communications, IBS implemented Outlook RPC over HTTP(S). User accounts in Microsoft® Office Outlook® 2003 were configured to connect to Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 over the Internet without the need to use virtual private network (VPN) connections. This feature — connecting to an Exchange account by using Remote Procedure Call (RPC) over HTTP — allows Outlook users to access their Exchange Server accounts from the Internet when they are traveling or are working outside their organization's firewall.
This capability is useful given the alternatives: using Outlook Web Access (OWA), which continues to improve but still has limited functionality compared with the full Outlook client, or accessing Outlook through a VPN connection, which network providers often block. For more information on Terminal Services or Outlook RPC over HTTP(S), contact Rich Holmes at rholmes@for-ibs.com |