Remote Acess

[phbhater]

Ok please forgive me for this, but here goes:

I have the unfortunate distinction of being promoted to the IT position of the company I work for, because I happen to know a few (Just a few) things about computers. Now I have been tasked with something and am unsure of if it is possible or not. So please forgive if this is a very ignorant question:

I have eEnterprise setup and ruinning at our facility. It is running off a IBM xseries server (Specs if needed are dual xeon, 2 gig ram, 80 gig raid 5 scsi's) The server is running SQL server 2000, and the OS is Windows Server 2000 service pack 3. I have 8 clients at this location running on workstations (IBM P4 , OS Windows XP SP 2, eEnterprise 7.00g12 with the dexterity 7.10m12) Piping into the plant I have a T1 with 5 static ips. The whole thing is running off a cisco UBR and then through my router to give net access to everyone. As a side note I do know how to port forward on the router if needed, I have a 4D databse that is able to be accessed by the net. Anyway, I hope that is enough background info. What I am trying to do, is allow one of our other facilities to access our eEnterprise database. I will be physically at that location for a couple of weeks in August, since I have to install a network for them. They will be getting a T1 line as well, with a static IP. I will be installing a router, and running all the network lines etc. And will be able to install the client software on their machines, but unfortunatly, do not know how to set everything up for remote access. Do I need to install VPN routers at both facilities, or can I simply set up a port forwarding routine on my router here, to access the database?

I thank you in advance for any help you can offer, as I am relativly new to all this.

 

[celeron895]

GP does not support running over a VPN. You should have the remote location use RDP or Citrix to access the main server. Using a VPN will be super slow.

 

[jazgeek]

I concur, terminal services of citrix would be your best bet

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and they wonder why they call it Great Pains!

jaz

 

[Dukester0122]

Anyway you look at it, it's going to be slow. Why, the processor will divide it's resources between Great Plains, SQL Server, RDP or Citrix and you need Active Directory/DNS.

But if resources are limited, I'll go with Citrix Metaframe Presentation Server over Terminal Server. I've tested both and not much of difference if everybody is local but if you start having remote users, I've found that Citrix is better especially with version 4.0. I'll post some benchmark on our servers after our upgrade to show which improved.

We currently have 16 servers and our Citrix farm have 250 users and 6 servers. We used to have 8 Terminal Servers but I'll cut it down to 2 and move the rest to Citrix.

 

[phbhater]

My remote users will not be doing any kind of data entry. All of our inventory, payables, receivables, sales, will be done on the local network. It is just that our main office needs to be able to access the database to run some financial reports every now and again. Also from time to time, they will pull up an item and look at its BOM to determine a quote price. I only have 6 users local, with 1 or 2 remote.

I have been calling around about citrix, but since we are a small company I think it is going to be out of my means. I know the seat license is only $250 per person, which is fine, but having to buy 2 more servers will definitly put it out of my budget. the servers recommended were (dual 3+ghz, 4 gig ram, server 2003). That will unfortunatly blow what meager budget I do have.

Since I do not have the budget for that much equipment, I have been looking at a vpn solution, which seems to be way more affordable. What kind of speed can i get out of a vpn with both plants on a T1?

 

[Dukester0122]

I think you're in the right track. If you only need to access the database then you can have a VPN tunnel to the host network, make workstation members of the domain then create an ODBC connection to your SQL server.

If they only need to look at reports and data(pricing), I would create a Crystal Report instead of them going to Great Plains. This would get you away from getting extra licenses.

 

[phbhater]

I have a vpn connection established, and have 2 out of three applications working correctly. I am however having a problem with GP. When trying to add the ODBC, system DSN data source, it will not connect to the SQL server.

The main location ip range : 192.168.2.1 - 192.168.2.255
Remote Location 192.168.1.1 - 1.92.168.1.255

The third octet was changed on the different networks to avoid possible ip conflicts with the DHCP server assigning IPs.

The machine IP in the remote location is 192.168.1.24 trying to connect to the SQL server through the VPN tunnel which has a IP of 192.168.2.100. I am at a loss to explain this, since I can ping the server from the remote location, but the data sources will not connect to it.

 

[clicker666]

In my experience, running database applications over a VPN is painfully slow. That's why we use Terminal Services (Remote Desktop Connection) for our outside offices to work in GP.

That aside...

If you can ping the server, then your VPN is at least setup correctly. You may need to forward some ports for SQL though, 1433 TCP + 1434 UDP.

I *could* be wrong, I've never tried this before, but it's worth a quick shot. You can always turn these ports back off on the firewall if it doesn't work. I wouldn't really be keen on leaving them open. (People might be able to exploit some sort of SQL server vulnerability that way)

 

[phbhater]

I tried forwarding the ports to the server, unfortunatly it still would not allow me to connect. (Shame you could not note the panic in the voice from me, as I have the gorillia of a CEO breathing down my neck) Anyway, I just am at a loss.

 

[jazgeek]

try using named pipes for your odbc connection instead of a sql connection it does help a bit too if you still run wins on your network. It all has to do with resolution and packet transfer success rate.

I still seriously discourage what you're trying to do.

Why don't you create a few crystal reports instead of trying to run the full application. At least with crystal it doesn't matter how slow your connection is, it'll just take a bit longer to pull the report up.

I use a product called recrystalize that will post a crystal report as an .asp page that you can put up in a corporate intranet.

Another suggestion would be to implement business portal, that might give you the access that you're looking for as well.

Terminal services is still my preference but there are alternatives.




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and they wonder why they call it Great Pains!

jaz

 

[newbeeeeeeeee]

quick question, whn you create the odbc dsn as a system dsn on the remote clients, are you able to succesfully connect to the database?