DirectAccess and user's ISP compatiability.... what do you do?

[dry]

We've been using DirectAccess here for a while and it's working well... for some people!

 

We've found that if the user has a Virgin Media superhub at home they need to make a firewall change to allow DirectAccess to work- and as I'm sure you can all appreciate, this is beyond a lot of our users without significant hand holding. It's also something SLT don't want to force users to do, but at the same time network shares, SIMS and other resources need to be accessible whilst not on the network.

 

The school has historically used RDP for users working from home- something I'm not overly keen on.

 

So... how do you do it? Do you write into policy that working from home is dependent on compatibility of the household's network?

 

Interestingly we've found BT HomeHub users are able to use DirectAccess without any additional configuration.

 

Thanks

[BooBoo]

We have written into our school policy that the school accepts no liability for the use of any IT at home or any additional costs that may occur if they use school equipment at home.

 

We have had one or two staff complain about DA dropping out who are on Sky. The most stable seems to be BT, no changes required but the speed can fluctuate wildly.

[sparkeh]

We stopped using it which was a real shame. Moved to an SSL VPN which seems to work for everyone.

 

For some people it worked great. Interestingly, it was VM users that had no problems. For people on EE it dropped constantly.

[Geoff]

We have Direct Access (With all the Win10 bells and whistles) SSL VPN, and Citrix Access via Netscaler. So there is various ways to do remote access for our staff.

 

We also purchase and support the home internet connections for the Equity Partners (I know that's not applicable in a school situation but I mention it for completeness).

[dry]

Thanks. Interesting to hear other people's perspectives on the problem. Seems like we'll be going down the route of a supplementary remote access service- whether that be RDP or Citrix or similar, which is a shame as (free) DirectAccess works well in most cases!

 

I've a relative who's worked from home for a number of years (she works for a Government dept). When working from home was originally implemented, a dedicated BT Business line was installed at her home and printer, phone etc provided. Seems it was too costly as policy was then changed so that use of the home network is required if you want to work from home.

 

I'm not sure whether that's changed again- I've got a feeling their laptops now use 3G/4G data SIMs to allow the VPN to connect to their network.

[MatthewL]

When I was NHS we had some devices with SIM cards in but that was only when WiFi wasn't available and they were truely mobile. When we went agile (i.e. not having a fixed desk) they supplemented £5 a month to cover costs at home i.e. internet/electricity/heating etc.

 

We stopped providing phone lines/internet/printers as times changed unless there was a specific business case.