DirectAccess Gets Positive Comments in The Register
From what I hear, this year is going to be the year where we see the wave of enterprise Windows 7 rollouts take place. While I’m not sure how these assessments are made, it makes sense from where I sit. Windows 7 Service Pack 1 has been released and end users, admins and the media have all been complimentary of Windows 7. Let’s face it – Windows 7 just plain rocks!
For this reason, I expect that we’re going to see a lot of new DirectAccess deployments being planned and executed. What’s one of the biggest goodies you get with Windows 7? I’d argue that DirectAccess is on the top five list.
If you’ve already deployed DirectAccess, you’ve seen your users and management love what it’s done for their productivity and overall computing experience. I’ve seen the same here at Microsoft. If someone who has been on DirectAccess for a few weeks somehow can’t get it to work, they show all the physical symptoms of withdrawal. Sweating, anxiety, fear, sadness, depression, and cravings all appear to those deprived of DirectAccess (OK, probably not everyone in the company has those symptoms when DirectAccess isn’t working, but that’s what happens to me).
Of course, it’s always nice to see external commentators say something nice about DirectAccess. And that happened a couple of weeks ago on The Register. The Registers motto is “Biting the Hand that feeds IT” – which is consistent with their hard hitting approach to reporting on technology issues. So you know if they say something nice, they mean it.
So when I read this quote at https://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/18/windows7_move/ I cried tears of joy:
“…there are real improvements in Windows 7…Direct Access, which requires Windows 7 and at least one instance of Server 2008 R2, lets users connect to file shares across the internet and without VPN. This is lighter weight and less risky than VPN, which gives all or nothing remote access…”
Sure, it’s not glowing or gushy but that’s not how The Register rolls.
What it does say to me is that they think DirectAccess is a good thing and one of the important reasons to strongly consider integrating DirectAccess early in your Windows 7 deployment plans.
Thanks!
Tom
Tom Shinder
tomsh@microsoft.com
Principal Knowledge Engineer, Microsoft DAIP iX/Identity Management
Anywhere Access Group (AAG)
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