Hi
I’m Nick, Senior Network Engineer. Along with Keith, I look after the server and network infrastructure here. I’ve been with the company 15 years.
Anyhow I’m still quite new to this Windows 7 thing, having only installed it last week on a spare laptop someone foolishly left unattended near my desk, a Compaq 2510p. Being the nervous type, I couldn’t bring myself to blow away my desktop PC running a 2 year old installation of Vista, with all my painstakingly installed administration tools. It’s running quite well so far on what is a fairly low-specced machine. All the SOE applications run fine, and I haven’t had any issues with any of the administration tools I use. I’m still getting used to the new UI but so far it’s great.
One thing that will have to be sorted out is remote access for our mobile workers. Our current SOE uses the Cisco Systems VPN client. There is no 64 bit version of this. We do have a number of potential solutions, including upgrading our current VPN solution, utilising our WAN provider’s VPN solution and VPN via our ISA server infrastructure.
I’ll be sure and keep you posted about everything VPN related.
Nick
Remote Access
Just a little update on the remote access situation before I’m off to a secret location for 3 weeks of camping, fishing and crabbing…. whoohoo.
We’ve decided to evaluate 3 potential solutions:
• Upgrading our current VPN solution to support 64 bit clients
• Trialling our WAN provider’s VPN offering for a limited number of users (5)
• Utilizing the DirectAccess feature of the upcoming Windows Server 2008 R2
Of these the latter is definitely looking to be the most promising. It’s an always-on feature, meaning that remote users won’t need to establish a VPN connection. It appears to pretty much enable them to do everything they can in the office, as well as allow us greater manageability of remote users. Windows Server 2008 R2 is due for release at the same time as Windows 7. Talk about good timing.
There’s lots of good info here:
http://www.microsoft.com/servers/directaccess.mspx
So by the time I get back all 3 of these solutions should be magically deployed and ready for our pilot users. Almost makes me want to rush back. Did I mention I’ll be out of phone/email range for most of the time? Oh well.