Remote Offices

I am trying to determine the best method for connecting computers at remote office locations to my server. Any suggestions/comments are welcome.

Here is the situation:

I have a Windows SBS 2003 in the primary location.

I have two remote locations which I would like to be able to monitor/maintain using the SBS 2003. Each location will have only a few pc's.


Is there a way to keep these remote pc's on the SBS2k3's domain?
Can this be achieved via a network-to-network VPN connection?

Or

Do I need to add a server to each location to connect to the SBS?

Or

Is there a better way to do this? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Rob

 

VPN from the remote sites to your main network and SBS server will work but there are bandwidth and speed considerations and especially if the remote machines are making heavy use of a database at the main location.

Having a distributed WAN with a server at each location acting as DC & Global Catalog Server (see This Article for how-to) will cost more but will give better performance.

Basically, you gotta decide based on what you need and how much you can spend to get what you need.

 

If your go the VPN route by all means go Hardware VPN! Not Software!

An appliance like Fortigate, Sonic Wall, or the Industrial Strength D Link will do a nice job.

You can do DFL-200s on the client side and a DFL-700 on the server end.

http://www.dlink.com/products/category.asp?cid=9&sec=2

 

Newt,

Thanks for the advice! My SBS 2003 is currently setup as the DC & Global Catalog server.

If I do go with the WAN setup, how difficult is it to get the two locations to "see" each other? Is this connection still done through some type of VPN connection?

Thanks,

Rob

 

Scott,

Thanks for the advice! This definitely sounds like a reasonably priced option if I decide to go the VPN route.

Thanks,

Rob

 

http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/cisintwk/ito_doc/introwan.htm

 

I use 3 Linksys VPN routers at three locations. I connect 2 remote office to the domain controller at one. Never had much trouble or problems using domain resources, atuhentication, etc..
Linksy BEFVP41
make sure you have business class dsl at each locale though, otherwise everything will be slow!