Improving VPN speed

Slime101 · 26 Oct 2010 at 22:29

I have a VPN to the office, for file transfers and general server access its ok, however when running our ordering software its diabolically slow, almost un-usable due to lag.

Is there anything i can do to speed it up, the office is on 8mb ADSL (only thing available as its in the sticks) and home is on 10mb cable.

Slime101 · 27 Oct 2010 at 07:08

Network guy??? What is one of those??

Slime101 · 27 Oct 2010 at 20:04

We are on business grade broadband with 856k or whatever upload, so about 120kb/sec theoretical max! Anything faster starts at £100K+ to lay the fibre so is well out the question.

We have also tried remote desktop, and 3rd party alternatives and found they are just as bad and also tie up the remote machine too.

Slime101 · 27 Oct 2010 at 20:46

I shall investigate SDSL but the monthly cost puts me off, still its a LOT cheaper than a leased line or proper fast conectivity!!

Moving offices is tricky, firstly it costs a fortune and secondly as a primarily mail order company any move of address causes a long and draw out process with royal mail and customers as postal redirects can only be done for a max of 2 years after which it simply disappears into the depths of royal mail never to be seen again.

Slime101 · 27 Oct 2010 at 22:06

morfmedia - its our server, internal every day use so moving it outside the building will be impossible for my staff to use on a daily basis.

Xez - currently just myself that uses remote access but we had intended on allowing other staff/directors to do so as we have very limited space in the office & print room and remote work may be the answer. I shall consider a stand-alone dedicated machine for RDP.

wij - deepest darkest dorset - we enquired once and were quotes such silly numbers i shant bother looking again. It might be worth putting in fibre for a big event, for us as a small business in a remote village we are lucky to have ADSL - when our service goes down it takes days for BT to respond as we are so small and insignifcant they simply dont care if no-one out here has a BB service! I'm not a big fan of 5yr contracts as we know we will have to move at some point in the next 5ish years as even with our proposed extension we will outgrow our premises, and other factors surrounding our location.

Thanks for all the help and suggestions chaps

Slime101 · 28 Oct 2010 at 22:11

Yes it is used for everyone in the office, except that no-one uses the internet except for getting orders off the website.

Also i'm using the remote access out of normal workign hours so my staff have all gone home by then and the line is idle.

Slime101 · 28 Oct 2010 at 22:23

Ive tried it with a VPN and using the program locally and connecting to the server remotely, and also working directly on the server using remote desktop.

No idea why its so laggy - thats why i was asking as its a good fast connection for normal browsing and downloads.