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Save money - Decommission your RAS architecture!

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Ok, so I'm exaggerating but I have been using a Microsoft implementation of Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services a *lot* recently. It's effectively meant that I don't need to remote into the Microsoft Corporate network when working away from the office anymore. The functionality and implementation are documented here. There is full documentation on the web describing the implementation, which includes the use of Smart Cards for strong authentication when I want to access corporate data or remote into the MS network. You can also read about it on this 3rd party blog which uses the data available in the download.

The UI is really nice too:

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As you can see my IT group are offering me a selection of applications, access to internal websites, fileshares and the ability to remote into a machine inside the corporate firewall.

I've taken to using this solution to remote into my demo server all the time as it works so well (and fast!).

So whilst you may not be able to decommission all of your RAS infrastructure this solution will certainly cut down on the number of connections and therefore the amount of hardware you need. Also, don't forget that Windows Server delivers a perfectly manageable and secure RAS solution out of the box. The last time I saw numbers for Microsoft IT they showed ~225,800,000+ remote connections per month - so I think it scales too!

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