Server 2003 VPN Questions

Van Diemen

Van Diemen

Van Diemen

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Quick question with regards to VPN.

Our offices currently have the following setup:

OFFICE 1:
Office1.jpg


OFFICE 2: (new office, some miles away)
office2.jpg


What I'm after is for office number 2 PCs to be on the OFFICE 1 Domain & for employees & myself to able to take the Laptops home, log on to the domain with our user names.

I have been told I need to add a VPN server role to the Win2003 box. But me being me has no clue of how to do this. I have been reading around on VPNs, but I'm not sure what kind of setup I need.

Is OFFICE 1 correctly wired up?
What other equipment do i need to get? (if any)
Do I need another network card for the server? (only has one)

All advice is welcome.
 
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Personally I would drop a Server into Office 2 so that the PC's there can talk locally to the Domain, wouldn't want to have to talk across the Internet to the other office for Domain stuff.

You will need to build a VPN between the two ADSL boxes, this may not be possible depending upon what your existing boxes are.

You would need to put the Remote Access / VPN function onto the Server to allow you to make a PPTP VPN between the laptops when out of the office and the Office.
 
how many clients machines do you have? are you just running server 2003 standard edition? is there any additional functionality you require either now or in the not too distant future? i would be tempted to suggest running a microsoft small business server at the main site, chucking a site-to-site vpn connection between the routers at the offices and then run your standard 2003 server as a member server at the remote site... everything would be part of the same domain, you would have fully featured exchange incl webmail, sharepoint, remote web workplace, vpn etc.
 
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How many computers at each site?

You could easily get a circuit from BT to provide the link between the two sites.

And then set-up the VPN for the clients at home.
 
Have the main server in the larger office.

Host email on the server with exchange. Users can use cached exchange mode. Have a fileserver at the other office.

Use adsl routers like the Netgear DGFV338 to set up an IPsec VPN between the sites.

Remote users can VPN into the main server for email.

- OR -

Get a decent broadband connection at both ends and have a terminal servcies server alongside the main server.

All users outside office 1 can then use RDP as though they were sat in office 1. Main advantage is that all services are in one place and this makes admin and backup easier.
 
I think you'll find your main issue is the upload on the ADSL in Office 1. If you are going to have people access files, databases from Office 2 (and other remote sites) you are going to have to upgrade that pipe
 
what sort of database is it? i've heard of people encountering all sorts of issues with databases across low speed vpn connections - incl corrupt databases, although i believe this is entirely dependant upon the type of database/application. the favourite route to go down here seems to be to run terminal services. there you have a couple of options, run everything via terminal services, or just run the app via terminal services and everything else over the raw vpn.
 
Van Diemen said:
Quite a few idea to consider here.

Office 1 has 6 PCs and 4 laptops
Office 2 has 3 PCs and 3 laptops.

The Office 1 server holds a database that all users need to access.
Click to expand...

This would seem to push the terminal services option I mentioned earlier. Yes you may need a bigger pipe, but TS is not bad over a standard ADSL pipe.
 
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