Thanks for everyone's responses so far! Responses below: >>Wouldn't something like Citrix XenApp offload the performance hit onto the local network for your remote users? Good suggestion. We're actually already using it(have been for 10+ years), but end-users hate it. I might end up trying something like XenDesktop and see if they like that better just for remote access....
>>It is, however, something that WAN accelerators were designed to help mitigate. I saw that Riverbed has a mobile client which sounds interesting. >>So normally the SQL traffic is between the users desktop and the sql backend? Yeah for some of the apps the traffic from the workstation can easily hit 100megs doing a normal operation or query. >>A VPN is just a network link. Nothing more, nothing less. Think of it like a really long Ethernet cable. Very good point. I'm over thinking it. I think the end-users have psyched me out by keep saying all other companies have VPNs. It seems like using a VPN w/o something like RDP or Citrix is only useful for simple apps like outlook/word/excel/etc. Summary: Sounds like a VPN is what it is, and something like Citrix is the current best solution for chatty apps... Thanks, Jon On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 1:22 PM, Ben Scott <[email protected]> wrote: > On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 12:09 PM, Jon D <[email protected]> wrote: > > I'm not an expert with VPNs... > > A VPN is just a network link. Nothing more, nothing less. Think of > it like a really long Ethernet cable. > > > Is it possible to have end-users use any sort of VPN technology to access > > high-bandwidth apps? > > (1) I'm with others in the "Use a VPN to access the network > remotely; use RDP (or Citrix or whatever) to run applications that > aren't WAN friendly" camp. I see them as complementary technologies, > not replacements for each other. > > (2) Bandwidth is only part of the equation. Latency (AKA packet > delay AKA round trip time) is just as important. Indeed, latency is > usually more of a problem these days, because everybody's talking > bandwidth and ignoring latency, so you have to fight just to find > someone who understands the problem. In other words: If you have a > gigabit link with RTT at 300 ms, it will still feel like an old analog > modem. > > -- Ben > > >
