Application not working for telecommuters

[iamcpc]

I have an application and datasource that i've published to a shared network drive.

End users use the application via a shortcut that's on their desktop.

We have a team of telecommuters who work from home and must connect to VPN to access the shared network drive. This VPN is like a brick wall between their shortcut and the actuall application so that the application times out. Is there a programatic solution either bypassing the VPN or reducing the lag that VPN causes between the end user and the network drive?

[dunfiddlin]

This VPN is like a brick wall between their shortcut and the actuall application so that the application times out.

That doesn't make any sense. The shortcut simply isn't part of the equation. Once the user is logged into the VPN then they have the same access as anyone else on the actual network on which the application and database live (assuming it has been configured correctly). The reasons for a timeout would therefore be something like a slow Internet connection or concurrency issues with the database. You obviously can't bypass the VPN because it's the VPN which makes any access possible at all.

[iamcpc]

That doesn't make any sense. The shortcut simply isn't part of the equation. Once the user is logged into the VPN then they have the same access as anyone else on the actual network on which the application and database live (assuming it has been configured correctly). The reasons for a timeout would therefore be something like a slow Internet connection or concurrency issues with the database. You obviously can't bypass the VPN because it's the VPN which makes any access possible at all.

My home network is faster than my work network. If I have my laptop on wifi at work (which is slower than my home network) It will take me 10 minutes to copy a 1 GB database from the shared drive to my laptop hard drive.

On that same laptop, on a faster network, with VPN it takes 1.5 hours to copy that exact same 1 GB database.

It takes me 1 second to open a folder on the shared drive without VPN. I log into VPN and it takes 6 minutes to open that exact same folder.

This is what has led me to believe that it's a problem with VPN.

[techgnome]

How about another opinion - because like other body orifices, everyone's got one...
The application should be installed onto each person's machine... it should NOT be run off the network... install it locally... then it becomes less of an issue.

Odds are the VPN is a PART of the issue... but it may not be the whole issue... it could also depend on your connectivity to the internet too... doesn't matter how fast it is at the office or at home, if the connection between the two is a couple of tin cans on a shoe stirng. It could also be the encryption that the VPN uses... who knows...

-tg

[dunfiddlin]

This is what has led me to believe that it's a problem with VPN.

I did put in the caveat assuming it has been configured correctly. I guess that's not something over which you have any control though?

[iamcpc]

How about another opinion - because like other body orifices, everyone's got one...
The application should be installed onto each person's machine... it should NOT be run off the network... install it locally... then it becomes less of an issue.

I agree but I don't know how I would go about installing something on 50 computers that are spread all over the country. Also If I install a hotfix or an expasion would I then have to do 50 additional installations?

[iamcpc]

I did put in the caveat assuming it has been configured correctly. I guess that's not something over which you have any control though?

You're correct. If I explain that my application won't load because VPN makes everything 100 times slower they will say that my application is not supported by the help desk.

[Shaggy Hiker]

ClickOnce allows you to solve both of those issues. I have an app that can be installed via a link on a web page. Whenever I publish a new version, the users all get the update the next time they launch the app.

[iamcpc]

ClickOnce allows you to solve both of those issues. I have an app that can be installed via a link on a web page. Whenever I publish a new version, the users all get the update the next time they launch the app.

Now when your app has a datasource that's on a Microsoft Access database how would the app pull information from it? I guess we would have to transition the data sources to sharepoint or a server?

[Shaggy Hiker]

You definitely don't want to be using Access across a network. It may work fine for years, but in my experience, even a millisecond glitch in the network when you have an Access DB open can destroy the entire DB. I have a couple programs that I wrote 15 years ago that use Access across a network (there WAS no network when I wrote them, so that wasn't an issue). Every year, or so, somebody comes to me because the database got destroyed due to a network hiccup when they were using the program. You don't even have to be doing anything other than holding a connection, and the damage can be all over the board. One time I lost a record. Another time it did nothing I could find. A third time it scrambled the last dozen or so records, losing all the work that had been done in the last week. The worst one froze the entire DB in a strange state where it remains to this day. That particular DB can't be either opened, closed, connected to, deleted, or anything else by anybody, nor can I delete the folder it is in because of the locked, inaccessible, file. Fortunately, I had a VERY recent backup (it may actually have been creating the backup that had something to do with the problem), and everybody just had to switch to using the backup.

So, yeah, switch to something else. I'd suggest you take a look at SQL Server Express, if you want a cheap (free) DB. There may be some restrictions on sharing that, though. There ought to be, actually, but I don't know for sure. If you get that, be sure to download the version that comes with Management Studio Express, because it is somewhere between painful and impossible to add it later.