Complete WAN/VPN Noob needs a solution, please?

[sgrinavi]

We have three to five users that share CAD & REVIT drawings on a network, of course I can set up a simple MS File sharing drive on a spare box for the office, but we need live, remote access as well.

I've done this in house many times in the past were we all just map the drive to a common letter and all of our links work GREAT... remote access was done with a GoToMyPC type solution, but it's clunky for the size & fidelity of the drawings we are dealing with these days.

We've tried the 'syncing' solutions (drop box, etc) but conflicts arise pretty quickly and it sucks when you are in the office.

We tried a pogo-plug, but it's slow and not very elegant

We don't mind paying a monthly fee for someone to manage and or host the files so long as they are fast and safe. I would even be willing to do an in-house back-up nightly just to ensure our data was safe and available should the provider go wonky on us.

Short of hiring a dedicated IT guy what's the least painful solution, or, if it's not the same thing what would the the cheapest solution be? Again, we don't mind paying a fee, so long as the value is there.

 

[rockchalk]

Does your business have a static ip from your ISP?

 

[JackMDS]

Either get yourself a Professional Cloud account.

Or set locally a Server.

If you do not want Domain Control you can use Windows Home Server.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/eval.mspx

If you have basic computer knowledge you can organize WHS by your self for less than $500.

If your Network is Domain based.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/dd459137.aspx

 

[sgrinavi]

Does your business have a static ip from your ISP?

I dunno... I don't think so, I'll be on site next week

Either get yourself a Professional Cloud account.

Or set locally a Server.

If you do not want Domain Control you can use Windows Home Server.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/eval.mspx

If you have basic computer knowledge you can organize WHS by your self for less than $500.

If your Network is Domain based.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/dd459137.aspx

Thanks for the comprehensive response.

If I set up my own server how does remote access work?

 

[JackMDS]

Local remote is part of the server software. Remote over the Internet is supported and can be configured too.

 

[sgrinavi]

Local remote is part of the server software. Remote over the Internet is supported and can be configured too.

But that's a remote desktop connection, correct?

I'm looking to map a drive across the internet - I we're willing to buy the hardware & host it at the office, but if it makes more sense to do it with a hosted/managed solution that would be fine too.

Let me describe the problem and, perhaps, there's an elegant solution that does not involve mapping.

There are several of us that need to access drawings on our shared drive

sometimes you are directly editing a drawing, other times the drawing is a background for another drawing that you are working on.

so, lets say person A is editing drawing A

(When a person has an AutoDesk drawing checked out of editing there is a lock file placed in the directory where hte file lives to help prevent conflicts. )

When person B tries to edit drawing A (while person A has it open) he will get a notice that person A has the drawing checked out for editing (which is a funciton of the software based on the lock file mentioned above)

At some point the file becomes available and person B can then edit the file.

If Person C is using drawing A as a live external reference for another sheet (drawing B) he will get a notice (based on the lock file) that drawing A has been updated everytime person A saves drawing A.

When you are in the office this all works like a champ - updates are almost instant, when you're doing it on a WAN it works fine, albeit slowly.

We have no problem paying for a solution, the problem is that I can not justtify the cost of an allout WAN/VPN solution for the number of users we have......

Does that help?