Cara,
I agree with you about the potential danger of using an
administrative remote connection for delivery of an
application. However, my experience with Terminal Services
in application mode is such that I can recommend it as a
real alternative to providing VPN or dial-up access or
investing in web-based versions of existing software.
Terminal Services licenses are pretty reasonable on
TechSoup; configuration can be pretty straight forward;
Remote Desktop can be used to troubleshoot Terminal Services
problems remotely. I depend upon Terminal Services and its
use saves my association many, many thousands of dollars
annually.
I regularly run an ageing Access-based registration program
(GoMembers: don't get me started...) remotely via Terminal
Services to process many thousands of on-site conference
registrations. In four years and more than a dozen national
conferences, I can report only a single twenty-minute outage
during registration hours. And that was partly due to a bad
router configuration.
I also support nearly three dozen telecommuters,
nation-wide. They use Terminal Services and have access to
every network resource that is provided to commuting staff.
The combination of some really difficult Group Policy work,
combined with some fun SharePoint Services development,
remote staff have a really rich networked experience. We're
moving next to provide IM and in-house blogging.
I am not a lock-step advocate of Terminal Services. My first
choice following long processes was Citrix, but they could
not meet our price point.
Anyway, sorry to babble on. Just want to make the point that
remote access can be a great experience for staff. Any IT
shop should feel an obligation to push remote access because
of the contribution to traffic and pollution reduction
alone. We've taken nearly half our staff off the road and
out of the trains and buses in two years. The only
complaints have come from those dealing with fiscal
information that can't leave the site and those who have no
suitable home office option.
OK, folks, flame on.
Gregg Porter
-----original message-----
>>When I thought about it for a few seconds, though,
it seemed to me that it would make much more sense to use
the built-in Remote Desktop Connection and cut Citrix out of
the picture. That way, those external users could create a
connection between their Raiser's Edge client and our
Raiser's Edge server using Remote Desktop Connection and be
done with any hassle about VPNs, Citrix or firewall hacking.
Then again, I'm not totally sure I understand all the
ramifications of what I'm suggesting. I don't suppose
anyone else has any experience with this, or any cautionary
tales about why I shouldn't try this option?>>
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