ExamSim MCSE 2000: Connecting Remote Offices Page 2

Thomas Shinder

This question focuses on your level of understanding of WAN internetworking, the
Windows 2000 Routing and Remote Access Service, Demand Dial Routing, and Virtual
Private Networking. Like most of the Windows 2000 MCSE exam questions you’ll
run into, this question tests your understanding of multiple subjects, and your
ability to integrate your knowledge of those subjects.

This company was sold a bill of goods with their previous consultant, because
the most expensive option you have to connect two sites together is via
dedicated WAN links. This company had to pay quite a bit of money to connect to
the two sites via a dedicated Frame Relay line. With the technologies available
in Windows 2000, a company of this size does not need to incur the expense of
dedicated connections.

There are actually two viable solutions to this company’s problem:

1. The company could configure a Windows 2000 Server at each site and enable
   the Routing and Remote Access Service on each computer. On each of the
   Windows 2000 Servers, you could configure a demand-dial routing connection
   to connect the servers to each other. This would allow the users from both
   sites to take advantage of the demand-dial route to access resources on the
   opposite network. The demand-dial route can be configured to drop the
   connection after a short period of inactivity, and therefore avoid the costs
   of a long-distance connection that is not being actively used.
2. The company could take advantage of a second option that includes the use
   of a virtual demand-dial route. In this example, you would have a Windows
   2000 Server at each office and configure each of them to be VPN Servers. In
   this case, each server would have a dedicated link to the Internet via a
   local ISP. You could configure ISDN connections for each of the computers to
   their local ISPs, and then create a demand-dial VPN link on each RRAS Server
   to the other server. The advantage to this solution is that the offices will
   be able to access each other’s resources via the link, but they will also
   be able to access Internet resources because of their connection to the
   Internet.

The key to cost savings in this example is to take advantage of technologies
that prevent you from requiring a long distance dedicated link between the
sites. In the first approach, you use an on-demand point-to-point connection between the
offices and do not use the Internet. In this second scenario, you take advantage
of the Internet and never incur any long distance charges.

For an explanation of demand-dial routing, click the link before for the next
page.