Multiple Remote Sites - How To Connect?

[roadsweeper]

Hi

We have an interesting technical challenge with a potential client. They are a successful small business but don't even have a LAN in their main office (8 users) or in any of their 4 satellite offices (the latter are PortaKabins because of the nature of the client's work and have 2 users on average). Everything is done on invidiual computers and paper.

They want to reduce their reliance on paper and improve the sharing of information and collaboration both within their main office and at their satellite sites. However, as always, cost is an issue. They already have 2 proposals from competitors but I suspect neither of these really meet their requirements in all areas. For example, simply sticking a server in their main office doesn't solve everything.

We'd normally use a hardware VPN solution for this kind of thing, but the main office (which is where the server would be located if it was to be on their premises) only has a 256Kb/s upload speed and I'm not confident that this can support 4 remote sites with a couple of users each at an acceptable performance level. However, if anyone thinks different I'd be interested to hear opinions and particularly experiences?

An alternative is to host a server off-site in a location with a high-speed connection and give them all VPN access, but then the main office is still sharing a 256Kb/s upload speed which I suspect will unacceptably compromise performance. Windows Remote Desktop could be used, as could Citrix, both of which as thin-client solutions can offer full-functionality (particularly in the case of Citrix, but it can be expensive) over a slow connection. Any thoughts on which solution, if any, might be the most suitable?

I still have to discuss this with the technical experts in this area at my company but I'd be interested on a PH perspective too.

Thanks in advance.

roadie.

[thepassenger]

roadsweeper said:

They want to reduce their reliance on paper and improve the sharing of information and collaboration both within their main office and at their satellite sites. However, as always, cost is an issue. They already have 2 proposals from competitors but I suspect neither of these really meet their requirements in all areas. For example, simply sticking a server in their main office doesn't solve everything. We'd normally use a hardware VPN solution for this kind of thing, but the main office (which is where the server would be located if it was to be on their premises) only has a 256Kb/s upload speed and I'm not confident that this can support 4 remote sites with a couple of users each at an acceptable performance level. However, if anyone thinks different I'd be interested to hear opinions and particularly experiences? An alternative is to host a server off-site in a location with a high-speed connection and give them all VPN access, but then the main office is still sharing a 256Kb/s upload speed which I suspect will unacceptably compromise performance. Windows Remote Desktop could be used, as could Citrix, both of which as thin-client solutions can offer full-functionality (particularly in the case of Citrix, but it can be expensive) over a slow connection. Any thoughts on which solution, if any, might be the most suitable? I still have to discuss this with the technical experts in this area at my company but I'd be interested on a PH perspective too.

Ok. My first reply completley ignored everything here so I deleted it
Personally I think everyone externally trying to cram in to that 256k pipe would be a nightmare even for RDP and Citrix turned to their leanest settings. You *might* be able to get away with sticking an interesting bit of kit in front of the RDP system: NoMachine's NX server. It's a round-trip supression and compression system; as a worked example I was able to run a 1920x1200x24bit KDE session going smoothly and with no noticable lag using only 20kb of upstream on my ADSL, as a bonus I could connect via Samba to a shared directory on my laptop and shuffle documents around between the two, not wonderfully quickly but. It will also do 'application mode' like Citrix although last time I looked this rootless mode was still beta.

As I said it can be used as a pass through to go to a RDP or VNC enabled server behind it, with pretty good results (again last I looked RDP was limited to 8bit colour, which isn't really an issue when you trying to trim the bandwidth useage).

Your idea of hosting a server somewhere else is sound and probably the one you should push for. If it has to be Windows they use, perhaps throw in a cheap n' cheerful NX box in front of this terminal server to help the office out, if they can and are happy to migrate to a total Linux system just one honking great NX enabled X server would do and set the client to 'modem'.

[TheExcession]

You haven't made any mention of what type of applications they run, nor of the type of data they intend to push to and from each site.

We would be better off speccing out the length of a piece of wet string, so in answer to your question I would guess 3.26 metres should work fine.

Seriously though, you need to look at what they are planning to do. If they are just pushing the odd word document backwards and forwards to a central server it will be fine, but if they are planning to do a full backup of each remote computer each night then you are likely to hit problems.

edited for typos

>> Edited by TheExcession on Thursday 16th March 09:36

[aldi]

Allthough Citrix/RDP is more sensitive to latency than bandwidth, 256 is probably pushing it a bit for more than a couple of users IMO. The other thing to remember is that if you've got printers locally but you're working on a remote box, when you hit print your 5Mb print job has to come up the 256 connection too - so printing will be slow, and it will murder the connection while its doing it. You'd need SDSL or a leased line at the main office IMO, which will be more ££££ and be a single point of faliure.

Do they all need to work on the same files at the same time or will each sites files be specific to their project? You could maybe do a mix of cheap local fileservers, backing up/syncing to a central one overnight. Just have email accessed directly.

Needs to be very simple from the users point of view if none of these duffers know how to work a PC... starting off with a slow/laggy system won't help in that respect.

[BliarOut]

As Ex says, you need to know what they are going to do before you can spec an architecture for them. One thing to consider as opposed to Citrix type solutions is a browser based app with a MySQL back end.

You're quite fortunate as you are semi-greenfield and can plan for a low bandwith solution from the outset.

Don't forget about DFS, that can be your friend in low bandwidth situations if you deploy it carefully and replicate overnight.

[plasticpig]

For Citrix the theoretical minimum is about 32k per session so it in theory it is possible. In reality 40-50k is a better benchmark so 256k is not going to hack it for 8 simultaneous users. If you combine Citrix with a printing solution such as Thinprint you should be able to have 5-6 simultaneous sessions running successfully.

Depending on the data that needs to be shared a combined sharepoint / Exchange server solution may be a better bet..