I have a client with offices in three different locations. They would
like to be able to share a folder at the main office and for the other
two offices to have the ability to connect remotely to that folder to
share documents. They would also like the ability to print to a
printer at the main office.



I'm looking at the possibilities of doing this via a VPN. The client
doesn't want anything over the top and does not have funds available
to purchase any additional hardware.

Is there a guide anywhere on how best to set up a VPN connection (or
something very similar) on SBS 2003 where a folder and printer can be
shared across the internet in a secure manner? Are there any specific
requirements?

Thanks in advance

How many users at each remote location?
Site to Site Hardware VPN is the most efficient use of the bandwidth. more than one or two Individual VPN connections from each location is going to eat up all the bandwidth, and a hardware VPN has a much more reliable up time.

--
Cris Hanna [SBS - MVP]
Co-Contributor, Windows Small Business Server 2008 Unleashed
http://www.amazon.com/Windows-Small-...7269967&sr=8-1
Owner, CPU Services, Belleville, IL
A Microsoft Registered Partner
------------------------------------
MVPs do not work for Microsoft
Please do not submit questions directly to me.

"Chris House" <mrchrishouse@newsgroup> wrote in message news:35c25145-25ea-4f0d-8464-3e47f6707729@newsgroup
I have a client with offices in three different locations. They would
like to be able to share a folder at the main office and for the other
two offices to have the ability to connect remotely to that folder to
share documents. They would also like the ability to print to a
printer at the main office.

I'm looking at the possibilities of doing this via a VPN. The client
doesn't want anything over the top and does not have funds available
to purchase any additional hardware.

Is there a guide anywhere on how best to set up a VPN connection (or
something very similar) on SBS 2003 where a folder and printer can be
shared across the internet in a secure manner? Are there any specific
requirements?

Thanks in advance

On Aug 3, 10:18*am, Chris House <mrchrisho...@newsgroup> wrote:

> I have a client with offices in three different locations. *They would
> like to be able to share a folder at the main office and for the other
> two offices to have the ability to connect remotely to that folder to
> share documents. *They would also like the ability to print to a
> printer at the main office.
>
> I'm looking at the possibilities of doing this via a VPN. *The client
> doesn't want anything over the top and does not have funds available
> to purchase any additional hardware.
>
> Is there a guide anywhere on how best to set up a VPN connection (or
> something very similar) on SBS 2003 where a folder and printer can be
> shared across the internet in a secure manner? Are there any specific
> requirements?
>
> Thanks in advance

The right way to do this is with firewall/routers in each office such
that each branch office is connected to the main office as though they
were in the same building, the branch offices of course would have
different subnets addresses but that's just a part of the design. You
create scopes in DHCP on the SBS server for each office/subnet, and
configure the branch office routers for DHCP proxy/forwarding. The
scopes in DHCP will or should include entries for DNS and WINS that
point to the SBS server so that clients in the remote offices can
easily browse to and find resources on the SBS server. We do this for
several clients using SonicWALL firewall/routers (TZ 170, 180 or 190,
and some other models).

SBS can act as a VPN server for remote clients and that's ok for
occasional access to copy files back and forth from a local PC to/from
a location on the remote network. But to set this up so every PC in a
branch office VPNs to the SBS server will not only suck up bandwidth
it just won't be reliable and in the end it will be a support
nightmare. Your client will be upset at that fact and your bill for
trying to make it work and do all the troubleshooting that will only
be resolved by installing a properly engineered solution. If they
don't want to pay for it then they must not need it that bad.

VPNs are great for email, web access to the server (ie. Companyweb aka
SharePoint), printing to remote printers (well not great for printing
but its the only way a client in one office can somewhat reliably
print to a printer in a remote office), terminal services, and for
copying files back and forth but for actually opening and saving files
across a VPN, be they Office documents, PDFs, Quickbooks or other app
data, it just doesn't work. Access to Windows shares is done by the
SMB protocol which unlike other Internet-based apps such as SMTP, POP,
HTTP, etc., is not optimized to work across slow connections such as
the Internet, and such connections are even slower when run over a VPN
because of the heavy overhead involved with encrypting and de-
encrypting the packets. The solution then for sharing files is to use
SharePoint. Works great especially with Office 2003 and higher since
those apps support the http protocol.

it sounds like sharepoint is the way to go then on this.

there may be say up to 10 users at each of the 3 offices wanting to
access the shared documents. it's primarily for opening shared
documents, for storing central documents and remote printing.

can all this be done via sharepoint? would that be better than VPN?

On Tue, 4 Aug 2009 07:21:52 -0700 (PDT), Chris House
<mrchrishouse@newsgroup> wrote:

>it sounds like sharepoint is the way to go then on this.
>
>there may be say up to 10 users at each of the 3 offices wanting to
>access the shared documents. it's primarily for opening shared
>documents, for storing central documents and remote printing.
>
>can all this be done via sharepoint? would that be better than VPN?

Remote printing is not addressed by Sharepoint. Define remote printing
for a better answer.
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http://blogs.technet.com/sbs/default.aspx
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