As alluded to in Chapter 1, the need to provide remote access to important electronic resources such as applications, files, and databases is not new. For several decades, businesses, governments, and organizations have realized that significant benefits could be achieved by delivering such access to various parties. These benefits include:
Improving work force productivity:
Employees and contractors can perform tasks even when not physically present in their usual work facilities.
People are often willing to work more hours if they are permitted to work from home.
Managers and administrators can respond faster to emergency conditions and may be willing to respond to less-critical events immediately rather than applying an "it can wait until tomorrow" attitude as they would if they had to return to work after retiring home at the conclusion of normal business hours.
Lowering costs:
Increased self-service capabilities for conducting business with outside...