I am an independent contractor that contracts out to my interns that are spread around the whole country. I am still a small business that would like to make an efficient and affordable setup. So far, I have figured that for $500 a piece, I can buy pretty good refurbished PC from ebay and set up my software on them. What is the best bang for buck remote access I can deploy to have very smooth remote access system going on? I have read that windows RDP is a free option. Is there a exponentially better paid option that won’t break the bank for me? What would you guys recommend?
Another reason I want to do this is that we don’t have to deal with file transfer back and forth. I would like to keep the files in these computers. This bring me to my next question. Is it possible to set up a single drive that contains all the files and no matter whichever computer they have remoted in, they would save the files in one central location?
A distributed file system would be a nice addition. Ceph, gluster…
Use azure avd or aws workspaces.
I was gonna say Windows 365 since they just released GPU enabled SKU’s. The cost per month is probably about the same as one billable hour of the Engineer.
If you want 5 pc’s to be able to be accessed remotely, rdp is definitely usable. I use it to access my home pc from work.
I have a netgear Orbi mesh network for my home (would have gone with other networking hardware knowing what I know now), but it has a built in vpn server.
You could get a router that supports vpn, and then set up access controls for the rdp protocols on each desktop, and give your interns the vpn configuration information needed so they can vpn into the network and rdp the machines “locally” without opening up the rdp port to the internet. Just make sure you segregate those computers from the rest of your personal network, the parts you wouldn’t want anybody to have access to.
Depending on the software you’re using, it might make more sense to set up a hyper visor type system, where you have one machine powerful enough to run 5 virtual machines, and then you can grant access a few different ways.
Either way, if this is big money, it might be worth it to hire a consultant to help point you in the right direction with what you even need to learn.
Thanks for the input. I am definitely a small business at the moment. I don’t want to rack up expenses. I was planning on spending 2-3k on refurbished hardware from ebay and try to get advantage of all the free software I can use. That’s why I was using to RDP in the first place. If I can buy a refurbished “powerful” machine to run 5 virtual machines within the same budget, I am all for it.
What kind of consultant do I even need? I don’t know where to start
So… Your issue isn’t going to be getting them what they need. Your issue is gonna be need High Availability and scalability. To give them info, you can create a VPN, or some sort of tunneling service. You can migrate to a cloud service such as azure, AWS, or Google cloud.
Scalability means that if your business expands, it’ll be easy for you to expand computing resources, without the need for redesign (this gets expensive). Also you don’t want to be stuck paying for services you don’t use. No sense buying a $1k server, if a $200 server does the job. But that $200 server might not be enough next week.
High Availability means, if the server your instance is on goes down, it will automatically populate on a different server, so your employees/interns never lose connectivity.
Once you decide that platform, you need someone who will administrate users and privileges, backups, basic IT support to those in the field.
This is typically what a MSP handles for businesses. Designing, the system, and the way the system is maintained is why ppl get paid the big bucks.
This is why, most businesses hire a IT professional to do this. They should know, saas, paas & iaas. Know which one is right for you, help you decide which cloud platform you go with, and which security measures you go with.
Now you’ll likely find a solution that works on this subreddit, you’ll likely find cheap solutions, overly expensive solutions, and secure and insecure solutions, and everything in between. I’d be looking to either hire a system administrator, or a MSP to set this up right from the getgo. If you feel you are up to that task, by all means. But, as someone who ran a business, and is now looking to get into this exact field. This is a full time job you are giving yourself.
Pfsense for a free firewall/vpn. Have 3 ports on it (WAN,LAN,VPN Network). Buy a cheap (1gb link speed) switch to facilitate multiple computers, and plug the remote access computers to the vpn network.
This keeps them off of your internal home network from a threat perspective. And can be had for about $100-250 for the setup. Beyond that, you can proceed with whatever design you want, and leverage RDP access.
Many others have better solutions, but this is another way to go about it.
