Larry,
How is Puget Sound? I went to school at PLU and worked in Seattle for awhile. Beautiful out there. A question and hopefully some solutions.
Why do you have to wait for the backup to complete? What type of backup software are you using? If everything is set up correctly and scheduled correctly, you should be able to see that it backed up correctly in the AM. Your backup should alert you by email when it is done correctly. So, you could have it email you to your home. But, worst case scenario, you come in, and it did'nt work and you are a backup behind. From what you are saying, my guess is you are only backing up one day at a time and not multiple backups.
OK, for your questions:
A VPN is a very secure and fairly quick way of remote access to your remote computer. Advantages: Secure, relatively quick. Disadvantages: You are restricted to those two computers. You set up the VPN between the two routers, and its complexity can be based on the type of router you are using. You can set up VPNs with dynamic IPs, but it is easier if they are both static.
So here are your possibilities:
To set up a VPN from SBS 2003 Standard to your home computer, you can use the VPN setup in Windows 2003. To be honest, this can get a bit technical. You can look at the following two links which give you step by step instructions, but they will seem a bit overwhelming. You will also need to forward port 1723 on the router on the server end to the computer acting as the VPN server. When our office set up its VPN to the hospital, the hospital set up all of the configuration and the Cisco PIX's EasyVPN did the rest.
http://www.onecomputerguy.com/networking/xp_vpn.htmhttp://www.onecomputerguy.com/networking/xp_vpn.htmIf you truly want to try VPN, you will probably find the software versions out there that will make it much easier such as:
Ultra VNC:
http://www.uvnc.com/or
Real VNC:
http://www.realvnc.com/products/personal/index.htmlThere is also an option you did mention, which is available with Windows XP and Vista. XP comes with a feature called Remote Desktop which will allow you to connect from your home computer to your client computer at work. You can then connect from the work client computer to the server if need be.
In my opinion, Remote Web Workplace is the best way to go. It is the most secure, it is a fast connection, it allows you to connect from any computer that has Internet access and allows connectivity to any desktop, server and Outlook Web Access as well as Sharepoint management. The reason you are getting the error messages is that you most likely to not have the ports open on your router that RWW requires. Ports 443, 444 and 4125 MUST be open. Every router has a different way to open the ports. Most LinkSys routers are relatively easy. A Cisco PIX firewall is one of the industry standards, but opening the ports there can be a bit tricky. If you have a Cisco router, I can try to talk you through it.
One other option would be to use the web service products which allow connectivity. These take about five minutes to set up -- you just register and follow the prompts. These would be GoToMyPC, which has a monthly fee after the trial period and LogMeIn which has a free version and a Pro paid version. The free version is more than enough. There is an entire other thread for this.
Certainly, LogMeIn would solve your problems. But, you paid for SBS 2003 Standard, and the beauty of SBS is it is inexpensive yet comes with very helpful features. Not using RWW is a waste. If you are unable to open the ports (and utilize a different static IP address than the IP address on the public side of your router), then paying a good IT person who knows your brand of router and SBS would be well worth the investment. It shouldn't take more than an hour for a knowledgeable tech do set that up.
Hope this helps. Please feel free to ask more questions.
