How are you doing file servicing in 2017 in an environment with frequent travelers and people who work from home (company with ~ 50 employees)?
I'm curious how other people are doing file servicing in what is going to become a post-physical-file-server world at some point.
Specifically, I have a client with 50 users and about 800 GB of data on a Windows 2012 file server. Accessing the file server works fine when you're in the office and VPN for remote access works but most people hate it (VPN is slow, of course). We have lots of people who travel and work from home. It's a Mac and PC network with about 40 PCs and 10 Macs with about 45 people in the office and 5 people permanently remote.
We use Office365 Exchange for email, and I've seen OneDrive/SharePoint in use - and I think OneDrive/SharePoint are not mature enough yet for a modern office with no tolerance for instability (I support a client with 150 users with OneDrive syncing down to the desktop and the number and frequency of sync problems is unreasonably high).
What are other people doing in this situation for file servicing? I could move to Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, or OneDrive/SharePoint. My goal is efficiency (ease of use and rock solid functionlaity) - particularly for traveling users who are having trouble with larger PowerPoints (20+ MB).
I'm generally just wondering what others have thought about or done in similar situations - or what others might recommend.
Thanks
Specifically, I have a client with 50 users and about 800 GB of data on a Windows 2012 file server. Accessing the file server works fine when you're in the office and VPN for remote access works but most people hate it (VPN is slow, of course). We have lots of people who travel and work from home. It's a Mac and PC network with about 40 PCs and 10 Macs with about 45 people in the office and 5 people permanently remote.
We use Office365 Exchange for email, and I've seen OneDrive/SharePoint in use - and I think OneDrive/SharePoint are not mature enough yet for a modern office with no tolerance for instability (I support a client with 150 users with OneDrive syncing down to the desktop and the number and frequency of sync problems is unreasonably high).
What are other people doing in this situation for file servicing? I could move to Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, or OneDrive/SharePoint. My goal is efficiency (ease of use and rock solid functionlaity) - particularly for traveling users who are having trouble with larger PowerPoints (20+ MB).
I'm generally just wondering what others have thought about or done in similar situations - or what others might recommend.
Thanks
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Brian B
You might also look into why you VPN is slow. Perhaps some firewall tweaks are in order.
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There were two questions about VPN slowness and how/why that would be. We're talking about users outside of the firewall remoting into our systems. We have a 150x20 internet connection and the remote user has whatever speed is available to them. I don't see a logical scenario where this VPN would not be slower than working on the LAN - particularly with large files (some over 20 MB and a few over 200 MB).
The remote desktop server is an interesting idea, but it presumes an always on internet connection. What I should have noted is that there is an expectation to be able to work offline. It's a very mobile workforce. For those with remote desktop session host experience, how is your experience with audio and video? A crucial part of it is that users work with audio and video - both on the LAN and off the LAN (sometimes working off a mobile broadband card from Verizon/Sprint/AT&T with limited bandwidth). My experience with audio and video in terminal server sessions is average to poor - particularly over slow connections. There are times when video needs to be edited or inserted into PowerPoints. There's no tolerance for poor playback or audio not in sync with the video.
I'm happy to provide any more context.
The remote desktop server is an interesting idea, but it presumes an always on internet connection. What I should have noted is that there is an expectation to be able to work offline. It's a very mobile workforce. For those with remote desktop session host experience, how is your experience with audio and video? A crucial part of it is that users work with audio and video - both on the LAN and off the LAN (sometimes working off a mobile broadband card from Verizon/Sprint/AT&T with limited bandwidth). My experience with audio and video in terminal server sessions is average to poor - particularly over slow connections. There are times when video needs to be edited or inserted into PowerPoints. There's no tolerance for poor playback or audio not in sync with the video.
I'm happy to provide any more context.
I don't see a logical scenario where this VPN would not be slower than working on the LAN - particularly with large files (some over 20 MB and a few over 200 MB).Depending on how your network is laid out and if you're hosting a lot of publicly accessible things, the upload could be an issue (not saying that it specifically is at this point). But also, depending on what VPN system you're using, there are some that actually use technologies that have a limitation on speed (OpenVPN is one such example).
Now will a VPN ever be as fast as the LAN? Of course not, but there might be some things going on that you can do to make the VPN considerably less painful.
It may help if you tell us more about how people mostly work. But yes, I've not seen a good audio/video experience over Remote Desktop.
I would think a combination of offline folders and VPN might be the best choice. VPN can be set up in such a way that if the user needs to access regular inernet that it goes straight out rather than over the VPN. That might help with the video issues.
If you have a lot of remote users, you should still check the status of your firewall and VPN device (if it is separate) to ensure they are not getting overloaded and your access rules are giving this traffic priority.
If you have a lot of remote users, you should still check the status of your firewall and VPN device (if it is separate) to ensure they are not getting overloaded and your access rules are giving this traffic priority.
ASKER
Thanks all for your answers. We're going to try out SharePoint where we edit files using the online versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. Or rather - at least, that's what we're going to test. If need be, users can check out files and work on the files locally. This seems to be a fair compromise.
it sounds like remote desktop aka terminal server is the recommended option here. We do a fair amount of multimedia work, which makes a terminal server hard, but it's certainly worth considering.
Thanks all.
it sounds like remote desktop aka terminal server is the recommended option here. We do a fair amount of multimedia work, which makes a terminal server hard, but it's certainly worth considering.
Thanks all.