As the "network guy" for a small office I was recently asked by some of the older, more fussy users to expand remote services such as Outlook Web Access and VPN to something even easier.... along the lines of GoToMyPC. What they like about GoToMyPC is that all you have to do is put in a URL, user name, and password and you're right on your PC and everything is nice and familiar.
I've looked at GoToMyPC corporate and it looks pretty okay to me from a security standpoint... so I haven't ruled it out. It seems a tad expensive... so I wanted to explore built-in aternatives that may or may not do the same thing... which brought me to Remote Desktop Web Connection in Windows XP.
So it seems as if Remote Desktop Web Connection might do just as good a job as GoToMyPC... I'm just uncertain as to what I need to get the job done.
I've looked at Microsoft's article
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/networking/expert/northrup_03may16.mspx and it did explain a good deal about the technology. What I don't like about this solution it is the fact that users would have to remember an IP address instead of something as simple as GoToMyPC or our Outlook Web Access address.
Anyway... here's my questions:
1. Is this the best way to emulate something like GoToMyPC? - Is there some Terminal Server/Microsoft add-on that already exists (besides Remote Desktop Web Connection)?
2. If I currently only have Remote Desktop enabled on our corporate file server/DC (server 2003 standard OS) so that I can occassionaly fix things when away from the office, and do not have a true Terminal Server running - am I correct in assuming that I will have to buy terminal server licenses to allow more than one PC to connect to Remote Desktop Web Connection? Otherwise, how would traffic on port 3389 route correctly... currently our firewall only allows traffic to be routed to one IP and then from there a server would have to take over routing for multiple PCs - right?
3. Is there a guide I should be looking at for deploying terminal services that also includes instruction on Remote Desktop Web connection on multiple PCs?
Hopefully this makes sense... I might be jumping to conclusions as far as how these technologies may or may not work together. Our environment here is as follows: All clients use Windows XP Pro SP2; DC/File Server is running Server 2003 standard; Mail server is running Exchange 2003 standard on Server 2003 standard; Blackberry Small Bus. Server running on a desktop configured as a server with Server 2003 standard. No ISA or RADIUS... just a plain ole firewall appliance protecting the whole shabang (Symantec VPN 100). This is a 10 user office.
Thanks in advance for the advice....
- Phil
