Remote Client Connectivity

One of the things that makes an organization more effective is the ability of its users to access corporate resources, whether they are at home or traveling. Many corporations are starting to use a work-at-home strategy. This strategy allows employees to save the expense of commuting, while allowing the corporation the ability to cost-effectively manage office space as the number of employees grows. Another benefit of implementing remote client connectivity is the ability to permit traveling sales and technical people to dial in and retrieve files and e-mail.

In either case, users who are away from the office need to be able to connect to their mail and file servers, which are located within the corporate network infrastructure. The Windows 2000 Routing and Remote Access service allows this by being able to receive incoming remote access connections, and then routing the data to its intended destination. The Routing and Remote Access service can also be used to receive incoming VPN connections, providing a secure way to transfer data across the Internet. For more information about VPNs, see "VPN Security" and "L2TP over IPSec VPNs" later in this chapter.

Remote client access to a corporate infrastructure is not limited to just Internet Protocol (IP) clients. Windows 2000 Routing and Remote Access service also permits other clients, such as Macintosh, UNIX, or NetWare clients, to use remote access through its multiprotocol functionality. The VPN protocols supported in Windows 2000 PPTP) and Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) also support multiprotocol connections across the Internet.

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