Remote Network Administration for the Home and Small Office User :: Design and Technology

Remote Network Administration for the Home and Small Office User Remote network administration is a fast growing and widely used technology in the IT field today. It gives system and network administrators as well as home users the ability to fix problems, allow or deny access to websites, download information directly from another computer, and give program permissions for different users from the office that they are at or from anywhere in the world that has an internet connection. With this very powerful technology, come some very significant problems such as securing remote access sessions via data encryption, the use of Virtual Private Networks (VPN’s) and a vast amount of networking and connection problems that can occur. There are very useful tools and articles that have been written and programmed to help the network administrator or the savvy user that wants to connect to his computer at home. This paper will focus on network administration for small business and home users using a VPN, Remote Desktop Connection and Symantec’s PC Anywhere for Microsoft Windows XP Professional. Personal experience has shown that working remotely is very difficult to set up. This tends to discourage many users from using this kind of technology because it requires a large amount of know-how and patience. A SOHO user must have at least a basic knowledge about home and office networking. Microsoft has put together a wealth of information about not only their operating systems, but networking using windows as well. The Microsoft knowledge base is a fantastic source for information. It covers everything from error codes to troubleshooting internet connectivity problems. Microsoft TechNet (http://technet.microsoft.com/default.aspx ) is a collection of information about slightly older content. Lastly, the Microsoft Developers Network (http://msdn.microsoft.com ) is a collection of articles, forums and journals straight from IT professionals that develop for windows applications. Almost any SOHO user can get the information that they need about any problem from these websites. XP Pro is now the industry standard for an operating system with advanced networking features. Working remotely for the SOHO user starts with the configuration of the network in the home or office. The small business users need to access all of their data at all times. This is most efficiently done by having all computers in the office connected to a central server, having the server host all of the other computers and have all of the computers connected via a workgroup. After that is accomplished, the SOHO user can then attempt to establish a connection remotely. A VPN is one of the most secure ways to connect to the home or small office to date.