Overview: Remote Access and Work from Home
Even before the world made an almost overnight shift to remote work in response to COVID-19, working from home was becoming a widely accepted practice. Global Workplace Analytics studied the annual American Community Survey conducted between 2005 and 2018 and found that regular work from home rose an astounding 173% in that time. What’s more astounding is that figure doesn’t include the self-employed.
The perpetual challenge with remote workers is that they require reliable remote access to their digital files. It doesn’t matter what industry they happen to be in. Whether it’s 4K video footage, next-gen CGI renders or simple Word documents, they need to be able to access those files quickly and securely from their Mac, Linux or Windows computer regardless of their IP address.
A virtual private network, or VPN, has been the most common method of providing that access. Here you can think of a VPN as a special lane on a highway that only authorized cars are able to use. Uniquely, this lane is all but invisible to other traffic (including hiding IP addresses from ISPs and service providers), and it only runs between two specific points: the origin (your home, for example) and the destination (your company’s HQ).
Virtual Private Network (VPN) Limitations
While VPN connections have been useful for providing remote access for work-from-home employees, they’re far from perfect. They have several shortcomings that hinder productivity and frustrate end users.
- VPN technology has been around since the days of dial-up modems. Some of its underlying protocols are outdated and aren’t designed for today’s complex networks and data centers.
- Configuring and maintaining the servers that host a VPN service increases the already heavy burden on IT staff.
- Dedicated VPN solutions are expensive to set up. Keeping them running demands even more financial investment.
- Poor encryption or user error in complicated VPN setups can create security risks.
- The VPN client sign-in process is inconvenient and confusing to many end-users. It often requires a separate application.
- VPN connections are notorious for being slow. As more users are added, they can get even slower.
During the rapid transition to remote work during COVID-19, these limitations became even more apparent. The sudden increase in users working from home overwhelmed VPN connections and highlighted the chronic usability issues of VPN services.
Resilio Connect: Fast, Secure VPN Alternative for Remote Access
For organizations that feel hamstrung by virtual private networks and VPN providers, Resilio Connect offers a cost-effective, scalable and incredibly fast VPN alternative. It enables remote workers, branch offices and employees who work from home to maintain maximum productivity without cutting corners on usability or security.
- Easy to install, easy to use. IT can custom-configure Resilio Connect in almost no time at all. Users need no instruction on how to start working with it immediately.
- Ultra-flexible. Working with lots of tiny files? Huge, multi-gigabyte files? An unreliable network? Whatever your use case, Resilio Connect offers remote access options to enhance it.
- Hyper-fast transfer speeds. Thanks to Resilio’s Zero Gravity Transport(™) WAN optimization, data transfer with Resilio Connect can hit speeds of over 10Gbps across the WAN. Average speeds are typically 2–10x faster than other solutions.
- Scalable to work company-wide. With COVID-19, some organizations saw their remote workforce jump from roughly 4% to 100% in a matter of days. Resilio Connect can smoothly accommodate these sudden increases.
- Truly cross-platform. End users can run Resilio Connect on almost any operating system (OS). That includes desktop OS like Microsoft Windows, Mac, Linux and FreeBSD as well as mobile OS like iOS and Google Android. There’s even support for all major NAS solutions.
- Private and secure. Resilio Connect is serious about security. Files are transferred over connections encrypted end-to-end with SSL and AES. Third-party security experts have rigorously reviewed and verified our state-of-the-art data security methods. Your data only touches the devices you own.
Unlike a virtual private network, Resilio Connect gets faster and more resilient the more endpoints you add. That’s because it leverages proven P2P technology to distribute data. Yet your remote workers don’t have to be swimming in extra files. The Selective Sync feature will only download the data they want, avoiding storage limitations and local bandwidth bottlenecks.
For a VPN alternative that will give your work-from-home employees seamless remote access to their essential files, try Resilio Connect today. Schedule a demo or get a free trial to see how it can benefit your remote workforce.
