Accessing Domain from remote Location

[MarketingGooRuu]

HI.

We are running a Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 at one of our offices. We have a couple of our staff that work from home. Their laptops are setup on our network, so when they are in the office they can just plug into a ethernet cable and login to windows xp pro, with their username, password and the domain.

However, when they are at home, they have a dsl connection, how can they access the server outside the office, without using OWA. Is is possible?

 

[elmurado]

VPN. See MS;

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/itsolutions/network/vpn/default.mspx

 

[MarketingGooRuu]

But isn't a VPN connection slower than normal speed?

 

[skialta]

Yes, there is some overhead associated with VPN however it's not something that will be noticed except in the most extreme cases. Definitly do a VPN setup, in particular an SSL VPN solution.

 

[MarketingGooRuu]

is there no other way to log into a domain from a remote location.

say i have a creative director that is across town and has a high speed access account. She has her laptop that she used to use in our office that is still set up from our office, where she uses her username, password and domain. is there no way for her just to log in to the domain using the active internet connection at her home, other than VPN into the network?

 

[Cstorms]

You have to create a connection to the domain to be able to authenticate to it. So VPN is your best bet ma man

 

[elmurado]

And it would be best if it is as secure as possible. I mean you could do something easier like port forwarding and use remote desktop but I would strongly recommend against that.

 

[NJForensics]

If all they intend to do is get their mail ... OWA is your best bet. Anything else would be a VPN number one option and terminal server number two. Terminal server will be significantly move administrative overhead and will run you nicely for CAL's.

 

[scottew]

Here is another option for you.

http://www.petri.co.il/configure_rpc_over_https_on_a_single_server.htm