Building Scalable Remote Access by Mike Fratto  Outsourcing Remote Access The alternative to installing and managing your own remote-access solution from end to end is to outsource the dial-up to commercial network providers and Internet service providers (ISP). One of the most costly links in remote access is providing the physical connection between the remote user and the remote-access server. The initial costs of managed remote-access servers and modem pools can start at $25,000 (purchase and installation of 24 ports) and go to over $70,000 (approximately 96 ports) for higher port densities, and ongoing support and maintenance costs can rise even faster than port density. Outsourcing dialup can lower costs for for human resources substantially because the physical infrastructure, management, and end-user support is the responsibility of t he ISP. You do give up quite a bit of control over your remote-access solution. If the business relationship suffers due to poor service, moving to a new vendor can be costly and highly disruptive. ISP's charge either by the minute or a flat rate for service. Your expected usage will help determine which plan is best for you. Of course, per minute charges can quickly add up so policy needs to be stated that will remind users of the importance of not abusing the service. Make arrangements with the ISP to get detailed billing so you can charge back calls to specific departments or projects according to your accounting model. Some key points when considering outsourcing to an ISP: Quality of Service can be measured in a number of ways. Typically end users will encounter poor service at two points: a) entry into the system (busy signals or blocking, ring-no answers) and b) throughput from the ISP to your network. Busy signals can be measured by the number of calls failed divided by the number of calls attempted. For example, 3 percent blocking means that three calls out of 100 attempted will get a busy signal. Lowering the blocking requirements will raise the costs of outsourcing because the ISP will have to provide more resources to meet expectations. Network throughput from the ISP to your network is more difficult to measure unless you have a dedicated pipe from point to point, or are using a WAN. If your data is traveling across the Internet there may be causes beyond the ISP's control for slow traffic. However, traffic is rarely consistently slow unless the ISP is over-selling its bandwidth- you'll need to track this over time. National Coverage is a huge benefit of outsourcing your dialup. If you have traveling employees or lots of small offices, finding an ISP with points of presence (POP) within their local calling areas will drastically reduce long distance charges. Not all ISPs have the same coverage. As interest grows in the Internet, coverage into more areas by the large ISP and long distance carriers will continue to grow. An ISP's current coverage and plans for expansion should be factored into the overall picture. Support should be picked up by the ISP, though you will still have to do some internal support for end users who don't call the ISP for assistance. If your users can't connect to the network and the ISP can't help them, they are going to turn to you. You have to make clear with the ISP the responsibilities for support that you will share. Dial-up Clients are typically provided by the ISP. They have packages that install in Windows and Macintosh PCs for dialing and network support. Beware, though, that your company may be liable for the cost of shareware on the client disks even though the media is provided by your ISP. Your employees are receiving the service from your organization and licensing is your organization's responsibility. Advances in dial-up networking are being implemented that extend the network out to the end user such as the Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) and Layer 2 Forwarding (L2F). These protocols present the client user to the LAN as if they were directly connected to it. Some of these solutions require hardware/software at the ISP, so find a provider that will support these protocols may be critical. Modem technology is still advancing and finding an ISP willing to move with the technology will be beneficial because you will be able to provide better service to your customer base. If you do decide to outsource your dial-ups, you still will have to support remote users, but the management of modems and remote-access servers will not be an issue. But you are at the mercy of your ISP. If they are slow at providing customer support, or are over-selling their bandwidth, you will find you have unsatisfied users. Updated January 17, 1997 Print This Page E-mail this URL