In 2019 I wrote about the sharp increase in remote work in the Seattle area and future predictions for what remote work would look like. At the time I had no idea how Covid would ramp up remote work. Thankfully the team at Altonworks was well prepared for all our customers who never worked remotely. We had the know-how and infrastructure to get everyone setup and new services offered by Microsoft, specifically Windows 365 Cloud PC has become reality. The new normal is WFH, even though businesses are demanding a return to work and the Seattle Times FYI Guy reports that Amazon “announced employees would have to be in the office five days a week starting next year”.

The magic needed to work anywhere: remote desktop connections.

While telecommuting from a home or laptop to a work network feels normal, the first Windows operating system to include remote desktop capabilities launched in 2001. Windows XP revolutionized how people connect remotely to their office networks, with their desktop computer beamed to another computer with all their familiar programs, short cuts and work flows. Before then, businesses needed to buy a special server to manage their employee’s telecommuting needs. Or they paid for a third-party service like GoToMyPC to manage telecommuting. GoToMyPC is still the perfect program for connecting remotely for some of my customers.

That’s the rub: there’s not a one-size-fits-all solution for every company when it comes to meeting their remote access needs. Since the 1990s, I’ve helped 100s of people connect to their office networks from other locales. I’ve helped customers work remotely from Europe and Asia destinations. I’ve set up telecommuting for businesses with branch offices in other cities and states. People have called me from Katmandu and Orcas Island when they needed to access files from their office computer on their laptops.

After two decades of working in IT, I can easily recite the history of telecommuting to anyone that asks me. But what do you need to know for your business needs when it comes to remote access? You need to know that the connection between your work network and your laptop or home computer needs to be secure. As soon as companies like Microsoft and GoToMyPC figured out how to connect remotely, hackers began to figure out how to hack into these connections. When you hire me to create remote work solutions, these connections will be secure.

Often creating a secure remote connection means setting up a VPN tunnel between your office network and all the computers that are granted access to this network. A VPN is a Virtual Private Network: your information travels back and forth through a safe, secure tunnel through the internet. Some of my customers are still best served by using their Microsoft Remote Desktop Gateway server as a portal, along with a VPN, for their remote access needs. Of course, there are more remote access solutions I could describe here, including solutions that involve a server on the Cloud. But your time is best served when you explain your specific telecommuting needs to me during a meeting. I can look at what your business’ telecommuting needs and figure out what system will work best for you. It’s my job to make sure you can work anywhere, from Orcas Island to Katmandu.

I see the current and future of remote access as this: your work desktop will permanently be in the Cloud on a server hosted at your business or a third party that offers hosted desktop solutions such as Windows 365 Business Cloud PC. You’ll access this desktop from anywhere with Internet connectivity and your work computer will be a simple, low-powered device such as a laptop or a Dell Micro Computer.

This post was originally published in March 2019 as “Remote Access Solutions for At-Home and Travel-Workdays” and it has been revised and refreshed for accuracy and relevance.