Book Image

Windows Server 2012 Unified Remote Access Planning and Deployment

Book Image

Windows Server 2012 Unified Remote Access Planning and Deployment

Overview of this book

DirectAccess, introduced in Windows Server 2008 R2, has been a ground breaking VPN-like connectivity solution, adopted by thousands of organizations worldwide. Allowing organizations to deploy without manually configuring every client and providing always-on connectivity has made this technology world-famous. Now, with Windows Server 2012, this has been made even easier to deploy, with a new friendly user interface, easy-start wizard and built in support tools.With Unified Remote Access, Windows server 2012 offers a unique way to provide remote access that is seamless and easier to deploy than traditional VPN solutions. With URA, the successor to DirectAccess, your users can have full network connectivity that is always-on. If you have deployed Windows Server 2012 or are planning to, this book will help you implement Unified Remote Access from concept to completion in no time!Unified Remote Access, the successor to DirectAccess, offers a new approach to remote access, as well as several deployment scenarios to best suit your organization and needs. This book will take you through the design, planning, implementation and support for URA, from start to finish."Windows Server 2012 Unified Remote Access Planning and Deployment" starts by exploring the mechanisms and infrastructure that are the backbone of URA, and then explores the various available scenarios and options. As you go through them, you will easily understand the ideal deployment for your own organization, and be ready to deploy quickly and easily. Whether you are looking into the simplest deployment, or a complex, multi-site or cloud scenario, "Windows Server 2012 Unified Remote Access Planning and Deployment" will provide all the answers and tools you will need to complete a successful deployment.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Windows Server 2012 Unified Remote Access Planning and Deployment
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Unified Remote Access and Group Policy


If you have a modern Windows network, the concept of Group Policy is probably not new to you. For Unified Remote Access, this mechanism is very important, as it's the main delivery mechanism for URA configuration. While many commercial VPN technologies require you to configure the VPN settings on the client manually (at least to some degree), with URA, all this is taken care of by Group Policy.

To this end, the URA server creates a set of policies in your domain and these are defined for the scope of a special security group (or groups) that you choose. Once members of these groups connect to the domain, they receive an update to their Group Policy, which includes the various settings they require in order to connect. This is an extremely convenient mechanism, as the unpleasant experience of having each user configure his connection is no longer going to be part of your life. It also means that your users won't be able to simply erase their configuration or damage it. In fact, to do so, they will have to work mighty-hard! This is not to say that URA deployment is always problem-free, but at least that part is taken care of.

We will learn how to configure and deploy the policies in Chapter 3, Preparing Group Policy and Certificate Infrastructure. However, if you have never used Group Policy, now would be a good time to pull out those MCITP books (or MCSE, if you're nostalgic) and brush up on that topic. The article available at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc725828(v=WS.10).aspx may also be helpful.