Client wants a VPN and mapped server drives with Quickbooks.

[computertechguy]

Client wants their users to have a VPN tunnel and give the remote users mapped drives to their out of office devices. They will be working on Quickbooks files and my thoughts if they "Pull" the QB data files down the tunnel there is a chance of data corruption, at the very least a very slow performance.

Thoughts? It would be impractical to copy the QB files before they leave as they work on hundreds of clients.

Right now the users VPN in and RDP to their local desktops and do the processing their.

 

[mikeroq]

Quickbooks over VPN is a bad idea. Not supported and could cause data loss. Not to mention QB is a little slow to begin with it's gonna be crap over VPN.

They should keep using remote desktop over VPN. Or you set up a terminal server and serve Quickbooks over RDP or RemoteApp.

 

[computertechguy]

Quickbooks over VPN is a bad idea. Not supported and could cause data loss. Not to mention QB is a little slow to begin with it's gonna be crap over VPN.

They should keep using remote desktop over VPN. Or you set up a terminal server and serve Quickbooks over RDP or RemoteApp.

Agree, I thought of the TermServer.

 

[urcomputech]

I third that.
Been down this road before. It can work with single user mode if the file is small enough, but even then you run the risk of data file corruption. Never recommend it. Remote desktop is your best, safest bet.

 

[nlinecomputers]

 

[Sky-Knight]

Just adding my voice here too, operating Quickbooks over the Internet is asking for trouble. There is only on version of QB that supports that... ONLINE!

RDS server or go home, oh and please do put a VPN between that RDS and the world, or slap DUO on it or that will bite you too.

 

[Markverhyden]

Echoing everyones sentiment based on real experience. I've had several customer destroy their company file using it over VPN. In fact if you engage Intuit support and they get even a whiff that's it's via VPN they'll tell you to take a hike. So TS is the only way to go for self hosted.

 

[SAFCasper]

RDS is a good solution but unfortunately not cheap due to licencing.

Intuit only support RDS for QuickBooks Enterprise versions and you would also require RDS CAL's for each user. Then you have hardware costs if a server isn't already in place.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

The accounting database can be said to be one of the most important files of a company. Why risk corrupting it by stepping outside of recommended supported scenarios? Even Intuit support does not support it through VPNs or across wireless..they want wired local network only.

Quickbooks has a very "fat" connection from client to database...it's very intensive, and does not tolerate a dirty connection or frequent sudden disconnects. If you have a big enough internet connection, high upload, you may get it to work on a test trial, and it may work for a while for the client. But there's an odd thing about accounting software and databases....sometimes "issues" don't show up right away. May take weeks...or months...before the results of those issues begin to surface. Might be beyond the retention period of whatever backup solution is in place. Imagine how that would play out....of even if the backup had a long enough retention like 6 months or a year...trying to recreate all the entries to catch back up if you had to restore to 6 moths ago! Ick!

 

[Metanis]

If they're this large why are they using Quickbooks?

 

[RCHavok797]

I work for a CPA firm with over 500 employees and we use Quickbooks to support our client's that use it. It is a necessary evil. Our employees use it over terminal services and even then it isn't the best behaved piece of software. As already stated, go with the guidelines Intuit has laid out for running Quickbooks in an enterprise environment.