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I remote a fair amount at my new job. Our production and test SQL Servers are IP-restricted to our development machines. I have RDP access, so most of the time I just RDP in when I want to remote. If you've used RDP, you know how awful slow that experience can be.

I have my home IP added to the exception list, but they keep sending me to conferences all over the country, so I'm on wireless constantly, making it sort of impossible to give my laptop access. I can VPN in, which gets me into the domain, but that machine is not allowed SQL access (since it's usable by non-IT personnel), so that's another easy solution that didn't work so hot. I tried getting a developer VPN set up, but that went over like a lead balloon.

Is there any other way I can get access to my SQL Servers? Is it possible to piggy-back off my desktop at work somehow?

At the end of the day I can always use RDP, it's just painful as hell.

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    I find RDP fairly pleasurable to use, but perhaps that's because my first remote access experiences were over 1,200 baud modems. – Evan Anderson Aug 05 '10 at 20:58
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    There's a certain moral issue here with telling you how to end-run your IT department. You could probably do what you want fairly simply, but it sounds like it would be violating policy. – Evan Anderson Aug 05 '10 at 21:00
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    To piggy-back onto what Evan said: why not tell your I.T. department what you need to be able to do and let them figure out the best way to accomplish that (if at all). It's up to you to sell it to them. And speaking of painful, try DCAF over SNA. UGH! – GregD Aug 05 '10 at 21:42
  • 1200? Luxury!! I used to use 300 baud. (Now we wait for someone else to come along and tell us about 150!) – Ward - Trying Codidact Aug 05 '10 at 22:20
  • Modems! Modems! I have to use carrier pigeons to access our secured networks! – Zypher Aug 05 '10 at 23:03
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    RDP does a pretty job of compressing and is pretty darn efficient. How is your RDP connection configured? Have you tried adjusting your RDP settings? Goto to the Experience tab, and adjust the settings for 'modem'. If you are trying to use too many of the features like font-smoothing, visual styles, desktop background, it will have a huge impact on your performance. – Zoredache Aug 06 '10 at 00:01
  • In my day we sent "packets". That is, small packages of punch cards! Through the mail! – gWaldo Sep 22 '10 at 16:07
  • And again, Sorry, RDP isn't what I'd call a poor protocol. The only case where it doesn't shine is over slow WAN connections. (Such as small businesses who run off of the cheap DSL or Cable plans...) Try turning off the RDP options, setting the manual screen resolution (instead of fullscreen), and turn the color-depth down to 16-bit or lower. – gWaldo Sep 22 '10 at 16:12

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I do not understand english very well and I do not find the exact meaning of 'piggy back off my desktop'...I cannot understand if you want use it or not :) (I will appreciate if someone can clarify me the meaning of 'piggy-back' and/or 'piggy-back off' :D )

But, regarding your question sometimes I'm in a similar situation..because of customer policy I cannot VPN outside LAN so I have to connect to my home PC and then, from my home pc, VPN to other servers :(

I cannot say if it will be better or worst in term of performance but maybe you can consider installing/subscribing something like Logmein free or similar services. You could use this service to connect via HTTPS to your home pc which is able to connect to SQL server via VPN.

Obviously, if your IT dept will permit it..you can connect directly to dev-server via logmein (maybe with payed version which provide file access from local pc).

PS: On logmein you can adjust video setting reducing user-experience to improve performance and it works pretty well over https.

Cagliostro
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