Opening ports... Good or bad idea

[SerialCoder]

I have a few users that are out in the field about 50% of the time. I would like for them to be able to use an exchange profile as they would in the building. I have a firewall with VPN account settings and it works OK but I was considering opening the ports to allow exchange without a VPN. Any opinions on this? Too big of a risk?


David Tulk
IS Manager - Dillin Engineered Systems
Conveyor Systems - Accumulation - Robotics - Systems Integration

http://www.dillin.net

 

[paulovey]

Hi,

I would say the best thing to use for mobile users, is to enable OWA.

That way no ports need to be opened, and mobile users still have full outlook access, without opening any more ports.

Paul

If aint broken, dont try n fix it!!!!!

 

[richyd]

Another idea is to set the Exchange server to have IMAP configured so the outlook clients can pick up email this way. You might need to create another profile with in outlook.

 

[SerialCoder]

Thanks fot the input. Any Idea what port IMAP uses?

David Tulk
IS Manager - Dillin Engineered Systems
Conveyor Systems - Accumulation - Robotics - Systems Integration

http://www.dillin.net

 

[Zelandakh]

143 for IMAP
993 over SSL

 

[dkediger]

Since this is in the Exchange 2k forum, I presume you're running that?

Exchange 2k3 made many, many improvements for mobile users.

OWA is darn near desktop Outlook in the interface functionality. Its hard to keep in mind that this is a browser interface and not a desktop app.

The Outlook 2003 desktop client can also be configured to interface with Exchange 2003 using http, so no need to worry about IMAP or any other protocol.

Its really, really worth the upgrade if you're supporting mobile users.

 

[richyd]

Yep stick with the OWA option. Theres some good articles on Microsoft.com knowledgebase website regarding the owa configuration. No VPN is required and its pretty secure.