How can you remotely access a company Intranet from your computer at home?
Linchpin Mobile - Need easy remote access of my company intranet from my computer at home and mobile
That’s a very good question. The challenge is, that your mobile phone or your home computer receive changing dynamic internet addresses (IPs) which are not easily identified by your company. That makes the IPs in question look like they come from random internet surfers. Many companies therefore set up a Virtual Private Network (VPN) tunnel in order to connect they device the their internal network. That can be pretty problematic.
- Once inside the network you might possibly harm more than the intranet itself as an intruder. (that’s a security challenge)
- To set up a VPN can be quite difficult for some not very tech-savvy employees. (that’s an UX challenge)
There is good solution for your question that we set up for our intranet customers with a solution for the Linchpin Intranet.
Our customers have the advantage of being able to seamlessly connect to the intranet with their smartphones. That works via a gateway service, which acts as a reverse proxy. Your intranet behind the firewall has basically one single outgoing connection to our gateway service. Also, the server is setting up a bi-directional communication via a web socket (feel free to not pay attention to the technical part ).
This results in the following benefits:
- Your Smartphone will be able to access the internal intranet without the use of a VPN.
- Your connection will be more secure than a VPN connection.
- The setup is much easier and faster for people that are not really tech-savvy.
Please take a look at this information about the Linchpin Mobile Gateway here. You can also take a look at this explaining video: