[PaulKraemer]

Hi,

I will be setting up a PC that will be used with a machine my company is
building. This "Machine PC" will serve as the user interface to the machine
and will also be running Microsoft SQL server to store historical data and to
make this data available for reporting.

I have a requirement that my historical data is available via dial-up modem.
I am considering two options:

1. Remote Desktop Connection - Allow dial-up users to take over the whole
Machine PC. I would create reports on the Machine PC that pull data from the
SQL Server, but I would set it up so that output from these reports could be
redirected to a printer (or a file) at the remote location.

2. Rather than Remote Desktop Connection, I would try to set it up so that
the Machine PC simply appeared to be on the same LAN as the Remote PC. I
would create reports on the Remote PC that would pull data from the SQL
Server as if they were on the same LAN, even though they were actually only
connected via dial-up.

I haven't used dial-up in so long that I am not even sure that either of the
above options are even possible. If anyone can tell me if either or both of
my options are possible, and also if you can recommend which option would
give me better performance, I would really appreciate it.

Thanks in advance,
Paul
--
Paul Kraemer

[Advertisements]

both SHOULD be possible...but neither would be fun to use...the speed of dialup all but prohibits RDP...RDP would work but you could pretty much click a button and go to starbucks for a coffee before the action occured...

what's the status of the overall LAN network that the machine will be residing on? do you already have broadband on that network? do you already have VPN capability?

[dsenette]

both SHOULD be possible...but neither would be fun to use...the speed of dialup all but prohibits RDP...RDP would work but you could pretty much click a button and go to starbucks for a coffee before the action occured...

what's the status of the overall LAN network that the machine will be residing on? do you already have broadband on that network? do you already have VPN capability?

[PaulKraemer]

thank you for your response,

From what I gather, I will rule out Remote Desktop because it sounds like the performance will be sure to be terrible.

This is going to be a new installation. The machine my company is building is going to Singapore. I only need one PC to do everything I need to do. I don't know anything about the network setup they have on this site, but I do have the flexibility to insist on isolating my PC as much as possible.

My only requirement is that my customer wants to be able to produce reports remotely over dial-up. The data for the reports will reside in MS SQL Server on the machine PLC in Singapore. I can install client reporting tools on a remoute PC in the United States. Hopefully this will work, as long as I can establish a network connection to the machine PLC over dial-up.

My customer has specifically said that they do not want the machine PLC to be connected to the internet for security reasons. I would prefer to use VPN over broadband, but they don't want to do it this way.

I am just trying to figure out, is it even possible to create a network connection over dial-up that I can use to access MS SQL Server? If so, how do I do it? If I can figure this out, I will set it up. If the performance is terrible, it is what my customer asked for. If it is so bad that it is almost unusable, then maybe I can convince them to go with VPN over broadband internet.

Any advice you can give me to help me get started on this will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Paul Kraemer

[dsenette]

i wonder if it would be possible to have the machine set up with reporting software that would automatically run a report once a day...then connect via dialup and either email the report or automatically dump it to an FTP account or something?

[peterm]

Remote desktop runs well via dialup.
I have used it in testing access to my home computer and it ran well enough. I was surprised.
Cheers
peterm