Road warrior support

[samweiner1]

I have a large number of highly mobile users I need to support. These users will need to connect to the Internet from a variety of wireless access points such as hotels, cafes, etc.

I'm looking for a solution which will help me enable them to connect without having to configure accounts at each access point, and ideally also connecting them to our corporate VPN at the same time.

Does anyone know of a solution?

Thanks,

Sam

[ua549]

Most wireless hot spots are configured automatically via DHCP so that the user is automatically connected to the internet as they move between locations.

For the VPN portion once the VPN connection is set up on the client it can be called at login time.
Exactly how it is done depends on the client OS. Here is a tutorial for setting up a VPN on a Vista client.

[samweiner1]

I understand open wireless hotspots are automatically connected, and if a private wireless hotspot is secured that I'll need credentials to get in.

But what about cafes that require accounts to be established first? Are there solutions out there for automatically connecting to these, say using a corporate account?

[ua549]

Here most of the hot spots that are secured only require entry of the password of the moment.

I have no experience with cafes that require pre-established accounts. Sorry.

[samweiner1]

Just reading about Fiberlink Communication's Maas360 (http://fiberlink.com).

Have you heard of them/tried this?

From what I'm reading, they support not only centralized administration of this kind of authentication information, but also centralized distribution of system patches, AV definitions, DLP and Encryption software, etc. They push security policies down to the end points, and have dashboard reporting of software inventory on the end points and other information.

Any help appreciated.

Thanks,

Sam

[ua549]

I'm skeptical about using cloud based computing.
I simply won't trust others with control of my proprietary data.
Look at what recently happened to T-mobile smart phone subscribers.
Many lost everything because of a third party data center failure.