Outlook and Exchange performance over VPN

[thebook]

Remote clients use VPN to connect to Exchange 2003. Http over RPC is not an option for us. The clients Outlook hangs at least 10 times a day with the ever popular "Outllok is retrieving data from Exchange...bla..bla). Sometimes it displays the FQDN of our DC and sometimes just the FQDN of the Exchnage server.

We have a T1 connection and I need to know what methods can be used to reduce this or get rid of it....last resort is a DC/GC/Exchange server local to the client.

Thanks you.

 

[Marcs41]

YOU may have a T1, but you forget your remote clients probably don't!
Bandwith and VPN is the bottleneck for those clients.
One thinh you can do it have your Remotes use IMAP to connect to Exchange (over VPN or not), that generates alot less traffic.

Marc
[sub]If 'something' 'somewhere' gives 'some' error, expect random guesses or no replies at all. Please specify details.
Free Tip: The F1 Key does NOT destroy your PC!
How Do You Get Great Answers To my Tek-Tips Questions? [/sub]See faq222-2244

 

[thebook]

Thanks but the clients at this site do have a T1 connection to the site where the servers are. Any ideas now?

Thanks.

 

[Marcs41]

You did not mention that part, but that still leave you with the fact that Exchange over VPN is always very slow, up to the point of the issues you raise. It gets even worse if you have multiple VPN tunnels or multiple connections through one tunnel concurrently.
So, it you would run some tests over VPN, but setting up the Outlook profiles as IMAP, you would see a big increase in speed.

Marc
[sub]If 'something' 'somewhere' gives 'some' error, expect random guesses or no replies at all. Please specify details.
Free Tip: The F1 Key does NOT destroy your PC!
How Do You Get Great Answers To my Tek-Tips Questions? [/sub]See faq222-2244

 

[anawrocki]

If the client can live with it, OWA may provide a more consistent user experience. Works well over VPN for some of my clients that are experiencing simular issues.