Were you prepared to work from home?
Physical distancing requirements due to the Covid19 crisis has been a shock to us all. As a small business owner I feel very privileged to be in the IT space. When others were struggling to determine exactly how to connect their staff remotely, we had a plethora of solutions already available to us. As our governments tighten restrictions, it’s important to know what options are available to your small businesses as you are forced to quickly adopt work-from-home technology.
Here are three great options for your small business.
Remote Control allows you to connect to a computer that is still physically your office, turned on and connected to the internet. Using your home computer or tablet, you’ll remote control directly to your PC or Mac in the office. Security risk is minimal, though we’d advise signing up for a corporate account in order to maintain control of your environment. Some of the best options available in this category are: TeamViewer, LogMeIn, GoToMyPC, and Splashtop.
VPN allows you to connect directly into the office network. This is ideal for staff members with a company owned laptop or computer and will allow access to most resources normally available to them in the office. We discourage the use of personal devices on a VPN as this introduces a major security risk and, while this can be mitigated by an IT professional, we find the other options are more economical. Internet speed can be an issue and you should check with your software vendors to ensure they support this configuration.
Microsoft Remote Desktop Gateway allows you to securely connect to a Remote Desktop Server (Terminal Server), but also allows a secure connection to individual desktops similar to Remote Control. Many users can connect to a single RDS Server, where a 1:1 ratio is still required when connecting to desktops. This is an advanced option that requires an IT professional to configure. A Remote Desktop connection to a server or PC without a Gateway is one of the greatest security risks that exist for small business today.
There are many configuration and security options that need to be taken into consideration with the solutions above. Start a conversation with your IT professional and be sure to ask questions. Educate your staff on the importance of being vigilant while working remotely.
The Covid19 crisis is impacting businesses and individuals across Canada in ways not seen in our generation. Technology is the glue that is holding society together in a time when physical distance is an absolute necessity. It’s our passion to support small business so we invite you to open up a Chat with us by clicking the button on the lower right site of our website. We’re here to help, no strings attached.