Another "remote access" strategy we are considerin

[fpruss]

While the Virtual Private Network idea is working fairly well, we are considering another approach as well.

The idea is this:

1) Do a FULL install of PCPLUS on each home user's PC

2) Have the home user connect to our network via VPN

3) Map the PCPLUS share on the server to a standard drive letter

4) Create a shortcut to the LOCAL PCPLUS9.exe that "starts in" the mapped drive.

It seems this should work about the same as any network client would, but would avoid having to load the ...large... PCPLUS9.EXE over the VPN connection.

Our most important home user only has 56k dialup and no possibility of a high speed link.

Has anyone else tried this? How much "bandwidth" is required to adequately support PCPLUS transactions to the database files?

Frank

[NeilZ]

While the Virtual Private Network idea is working fairly well, we are considering another approach as well.

The idea is this:

1) Do a FULL install of PCPLUS on each home user's PC

2) Have the home user connect to our network via VPN

3) Map the PCPLUS share on the server to a standard drive letter

4) Create a shortcut to the LOCAL PCPLUS9.exe that "starts in" the mapped drive.

It seems this should work about the same as any network client would, but would avoid having to load the ...large... PCPLUS9.EXE over the VPN connection.

Our most important home user only has 56k dialup and no possibility of a high speed link.

Has anyone else tried this? How much "bandwidth" is required to adequately support PCPLUS transactions to the database files?

Frank

Not sure if this would work .... a better idea ... GoToMyPC ... its actually CITRIX terminal server type of setup, and is optimized for dialup access. I used to work from home using a Citirx dialup connection, and while there is a slight lag, it does work quite nicely. And there is full security as Citirx uses very good encryption.

[jeffkoke]

While the Virtual Private Network idea is working fairly well, we are considering another approach as well.

The idea is this:

1) Do a FULL install of PCPLUS on each home user's PC

2) Have the home user connect to our network via VPN

3) Map the PCPLUS share on the server to a standard drive letter

4) Create a shortcut to the LOCAL PCPLUS9.exe that "starts in" the mapped drive.

It seems this should work about the same as any network client would, but would avoid having to load the ...large... PCPLUS9.EXE over the VPN connection.

Our most important home user only has 56k dialup and no possibility of a high speed link.

Has anyone else tried this? How much "bandwidth" is required to adequately support PCPLUS transactions to the database files?

Frank

Once you have the VPN established, me thinks you should use netsetup9 to do this and not install locally.

Otherwise, I believe you'll have disparate databases all over the place and no one will know "who's on first."

Jeff

[fpruss]

WRT to "just running" Netsetup9, need to make the idea clearer, I guess.

If the local PCPLUS9 "starts in" the network share, which is a property of a short-cut, it should use the database files on the server.

That is the key to how the normal network client setup works. However, in the normal network client, you don't have a "local" copy of PCPLUS9.EXE, you get that from the server's share as well.

The point is to not use the normal configuration that results from Netsetup9, which would result in having to "download" the 12MB pcplus9.exe over a 44-56K line everytime the dialup user starts PCPLUS.

Not to mention the pain of "downloading" the 20+MB Netsetup9.exe for an initial network client installation.

=============

Thanks, but WRT to Citrix, that would be the equivalent to what we are doing with Terminal Server to day. Don't know if Citrix is really any better that TS when the connection is over dialup. Not really interested in a flame about Citrix vs. TS, we just don't have the $ for Citrix anyway.

All of these approaches have encrypted traffice over the VPN. Some better than others. Currently we are using encripted PPTP, but are considering IPSec with certificate authentication in the near future.

[NeilZ]

WRT to "just running" Netsetup9, need to make the idea clearer, I guess.

If the local PCPLUS9 "starts in" the network share, which is a property of a short-cut, it should use the database files on the server.

That is the key to how the normal network client setup works. However, in the normal network client, you don't have a "local" copy of PCPLUS9.EXE, you get that from the server's share as well.

The point is to not use the normal configuration that results from Netsetup9, which would result in having to "download" the 12MB pcplus9.exe over a 44-56K line everytime the dialup user starts PCPLUS.

Not to mention the pain of "downloading" the 20+MB Netsetup9.exe for an initial network client installation.

=============

Thanks, but WRT to Citrix, that would be the equivalent to what we are doing with Terminal Server to day. Don't know if Citrix is really any better that TS when the connection is over dialup. Not really interested in a flame about Citrix vs. TS, we just don't have the $ for Citrix anyway.

All of these approaches have encrypted traffice over the VPN. Some better than others. Currently we are using encripted PPTP, but are considering IPSec with certificate authentication in the near future.

No flame ... its just that the 'GoToMyPC' is not the same as Terminal Server or Citrix (which MS actually licenses as the basis for TS). It loads a small executable on your host machine which runs as a listener, and your client runs out of a browser, ANY brower on ANY operating system that runs a JVM, there's no client application that needs to load. Yes it is Citrix, but Citrix light. You only pay a monthly or yearly fee to use the system, there's no direct dial up, and it uses standard HTTP ports to get past firewalls. However, it is very secure.

We're thinking about it for our treasurer.

This eliminates the download of any PC+ executable, as the program is running on the host computer, and the only thing running on the client is a browser. The nice part about this is that you can set up a client's printer to print from the application on the host.

Alot less work, and no worries about data corruption if the line goes down, etc.

[Jeff]

Your method of loading the EXE locally would work and we have other users who have done remote access in the manner you are describing, a few not many. A few things to keep in mind, when a new MR is released you need a system to get the exe to each remote user so they are all running the same program date.

Another thing to consider is PowerChurch is a file system database not a client server database. What this means is all the processing is done on the local workstation and the information has to travel over the wire to it. FoxPro is fairly smart and uses the index information to decide which records it needs to read, this can reduce network traffic with properly tuned indexes. But this doesn't always work, we can't tune the indexes for every report that is in PowerChurch. For some reports you could end up bringing the whole data file over the network for the local station to process. This can be especially troublesome for atendance data where the data file can become very large and there are not many indexes available.

So the short answer is yes this will work, but you may run into performance problems. These are the reson we recommend remote control programs like Terminal Server, Citrix, GoToMyPc, PcAnywhere, etc rather than remote access procedures like you are describing.

[fpruss]

I will look more closely at GoToMyPC.

So far I'm trying to avoid opening any HTTP ports on our firewall, but will have a look at it anyway.

It's also possible that http on standard ports is blocked by our ISP anyway, our T&C indicate that running VPM access is OK but web and mail servers are not allowed.

Of course, if it can work over http when the VPN is established, that is different.

Frank

[jeffkoke]

Your method of loading the EXE locally would work and we have other users who have done remote access in the manner you are describing, a few not many. A few things to keep in mind, when a new MR is released you need a system to get the exe to each remote user so they are all running the same program date.

Another thing to consider is PowerChurch is a file system database not a client server database.

Has PowerChurch considered creating a GUI/web-based front-end?

Jeff

[Zaphod]

It's something we're researching. We've had lots of discussions about how to implement a web-based solution, but it's all still in the "what if" phase right now. Now that v9 is out the door, we've had some more time to devote to this.

I've talked to users who have GoToMyPC and they've asked me to connect to their computer so I could see what they'd done. It freaked me out a little bit, but it seemed to work just fine.

[NeilZ]

It's something we're researching. We've had lots of discussions about how to implement a web-based solution, but it's all still in the "what if" phase right now. Now that v9 is out the door, we've had some more time to devote to this.

I've talked to users who have GoToMyPC and they've asked me to connect to their computer so I could see what they'd done. It freaked me out a little bit, but it seemed to work just fine.

It is really excellent ... as I mentioned above ... Citrix has been doing this kind of stuff for over 15 years. I first encounted them back in 1993 when I worked for a company doing OS/2 work. Citirx came out with a product that allowed OS/2 users to access NT applications using this type of 'terminal server' technology, or access their OS/2 work machines from home via dial-up from a Windows or OS/2 machine.

Then MS tried to steal, er, borrow it ... finally MS just licensed the technology from Citrix.

[Zaphod]

Then MS tried to steal, er, borrow it ...

I think the term you're looking for is "Embrace and Extend."

[jeffkoke]

Then MS tried to steal, er, borrow it ...

I think the term you're looking for is "Embrace and Extend."

I think you're being too politically correct.

If M$ can't re-invent it, they buy it and put their name on the front cover. Visio is one prime example. I'm sure there are many others. This "plan of action" dates way back to the days of DOS.

My $.07 worth,
Jeff

[Zaphod]

Oh, I know. That's the euphemism THEY use for that tactic.