Managing remote users

IT administrators agree that centralized servers and thin clients ease the task of supporting off-site employees.

Data center consolidation appears to be an ever-increasing strategy for managing remote users, IT managers say, as concerns for data security , reliability and availability of assets continue to pervade enterprise networks.

Among those managing remote users from a central location is Wade Phillips, director of technology for the Shakopee School District in Minnesota.

"We do this for a single point of administration and economies of scale," Phillips says. "We have a Fibre-Channel -based infrastructure so it made sense to pull back all of our services to a central location."

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Data center consolidation appears to be an ever-increasing strategy for managing remote users, IT managers say, as concerns for data security , reliability and availability of assets continue to pervade enterprise networks.

Among those managing remote users from a central location is Wade Phillips, director of technology for the Shakopee School District in Minnesota.

"We do this for a single point of administration and economies of scale," Phillips says. "We have a Fibre-Channel -based infrastructure so it made sense to pull back all of our services to a central location."

Phillips manages remote students, teachers and staff using Citrix MetaFrame. Those users log on to a Citrix thin client to access their applications.

"We allow teachers, students and staff to connect remotely and access published applications from virtually any Internet-connected device," he says. "We are supporting up to 200 concurrent connections as of today and only expect to grow."

In this fashion, because users are connecting to centralized servers, it is easy for Phillips to back up the network with conventional tools. He uses Microsoft's Volume Shadow Copy Services for recent document recoveries and data backups on the servers to restore anything that a user cannot get back.

Hospital keeps data server-based

Mark Moroses, senior director technical services/security officer at Maimonides Medical Center in New York, takes a slightly more complicated approach to centralized management.

He has two types of users: clinical and administrative. While administrative workers generally check e-mail and retrieve an occasional file from Maimonides' network, clinical workers access applications and medical records for 98% of their needs.

"By design and policy, no data is stored remotely," Moroses says. "Clinical application data is only server-based. Mail storage is server-based. Generic file storage is only backed up if it is located on a network file server."

Unlike Phillips, Moroses supports user workstations and laptops. Users connect remotely to Maimonides' network via thin clients.

"The only thick client we support is the teleradiology workstation, for which we will actually still have to send a technician to their homes if necessary," Moroses says. "Laptops are brought to us, for remediation and redeployment."

And Moroses solves configuration and application issues with remote tools, such as WebEx Support Center, IBM Director or Symantec's OnCommand remote control.

Centrally installed anti-virus software protects remote laptops and workstations from worms and spyware. Cisco IPSec and SSL software handles authentication of users to the network. "We use IPSec for site-to-site connectivity, and SSL is preferred for remote users," Moroses says.

Credit Union centralizes management

Tom Gonzales, senior network administrator for the Colorado State Employees Credit Union in Denver, uses a VPN to protect his network from unauthorized remote users. He uses Altiris ' Client Management Suite to protect the remote users' workstations and laptops.