Don't let strikes ruin our Economy - Work securely from home...

I have spoken about virtual meetings and their strengths before... This week, due to the rising fears of fuel shortages and other types of intimidation interfering with “normal” working conditions, you might be wondering how we are going to carry on being productive... Well the answer in short is VPN's. Yep, Virtual Private Networks. To most of us this is a buzz-word, but in times like these it’s just what we need to bypass all “problems” and get working from home.

In yester years VPNs used to be complicated things that were hard to set-up and maintain – however these days technology is quite mature and can usually be set up quickly and efficiently.

What a VPN does, simpy put, is it creates a secure connection from your computer/network into another network. For instance, this could be from your laptop or home network into your office. So it’s as if you are plugged into your ofice network (perhaps a bit slower). You can get your mail, work on documents on the file server, connect to the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System or the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems or what ever else is available at your workplace.

Hell if your company has a Voice Over IP PABX you can even get your extension routed over the VPN to your computer or home VOIP phone. The opportunities are endlesss...

The two main requirements are some type of Internet connection and a network administration or security team who can sort you out with a VPN and make sure you get the access you require. There is usually a requirement to have some type of device that can create this VPN for you i.e. a router, a firewall, a dedicated VPN gateway or perhaps even subscribing to a provider, like Telkom, who sort the nitty gritties our for you.

So fortunately this is a viable alternative to a virtual workforce who do not have to be at the office all the time. Unfortunately the excuses and holiday opportunities presented with the inability to arrive at work might be a thing of the past :-)

BTFD (Byteboy Thought for the Day)

Technology is supposed to be an enabler and I love it when IT manages to get us out of a dry petrol spot. But beware once you’ve had a sip of the VPN freedom it is quite easy to become a VPNaholic and this may leed to increased efficiencies, better work tunaround time and way too much overtime, which might keep the boss happy… But remember to also keep the spouse happy too ;)