mobile users, TS and backing up files... How do you do it?

[Mike]

Hi,

We have a couple of remote offices, and the users have notebooks and connect
to the main office via TS. Our TS server has a mapped drive to a disk that
is backed up nightly to tape and users are encouraged to store documents
there for backup purposes, and work on those files via a TS connection.
However, these are mobile users, who don't always have internet access and
have to store those files locally on the notebook, and therefore have no way
to then "copy" them to the TS mapped drive.
What are my possible workarounds to this if any?

Thanks,

Mike

 

[news]

Mike wrote:
> Hi,
>
> We have a couple of remote offices, and the users have notebooks and connect
> to the main office via TS. Our TS server has a mapped drive to a disk that
> is backed up nightly to tape and users are encouraged to store documents
> there for backup purposes, and work on those files via a TS connection.
> However, these are mobile users, who don't always have internet access and
> have to store those files locally on the notebook, and therefore have no way
> to then "copy" them to the TS mapped drive.
> What are my possible workarounds to this if any?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Mike
>

wow,
offline files doesn't really cut it here. offline files and roaming
profiles don't perform well on slow connections (when users have good
amount of data to be synchronized).

Novell has iFolder which really does solve this problem.

http://www.novell.com/products/ifolder/


I'm sure if you look around you'll find third party remote backup
vendors. That's the only way I can think of.

Another would be install a server to each remote office and use offline
files or roaming profiles for the users from that server. This is a lot
of work and you also have to be responsible for backups. The remote
backup service seems easier.

good luck,

Oskar