Remote Access for cheap or free ;-D

[Shilohcity]

Hi there

I am very new to the area of Remote access and am wondering where to start to solve the following problem. I have 4 pc's spread apart around the country. At present these machines have no modems, LAN cards or Remote Access software. I would like to network the machines together somehow around a central server i.e. connect to central server at a predefined time and download some data. Ideally I would also like to be able to use PC Anywhere or similar to control the machines remotely. I have considered the option of schedulng tasks to ftp the data from a web server which would work fine but doesn't help with the Remote Control part. Oh yeah and I would like to do this as cheaply as possible or free even....

Any ideas are most welcome.

Cheers

Justin. X-) "Creativity is the ability to introduce order into the randomness of nature." Eric Hoffer

Visit me at

http://www.dfodesign.co.nz

 

[Guest_imported]

Unfortunately you may not have an option for free. You will need some sort of internet or dialup access for all of your PC's. Modems are the cheapest way. Then you will have the problem of where will the PC's dial to connect to your central server. You have a couple of choices. First, you can set up some sort of RAS at your central office to allow your remote clients to dialup. But if your PC's are all over the country you will undoubtly incur long distance expenses. Further, you will need to purchase the RAS hardware to answer the calls.

The other option is to have internet access for your PC's whereby they can dial up into the ISP using local numbers (i.e. AOL or Earthlink to name a couple). This may be cheaper since you will most likely have a local number available to avoid long distance charges. But each location will need separate access or else only one PC can be logged in at a time. ISP fees can range from free for Netzero (not recommended) up to about $23/month for AOL last time I checked. I think AT&T Broadband offers service for about $15 /month. So $15 x 4 PCs = $60/month plus whatever your cost will be for Internet access for your central server. The advantage is you won't need a RAS device since the ISP will already have that.

Also depending on your app, you may want to consider VPN as well.

 

[Shilohcity]

Hi there

Thanks for your feedback it is most useful to give me a basic outline of the options.

Justin. X-) "Creativity is the ability to introduce order into the randomness of nature." Eric Hoffer

Visit me at

http://www.dfodesign.co.nz