SonicWALL SonicWALL SSL VPN 5.5 manual Virtual Office Overview, Accessing Virtual Office Resources

Virtual Office Overview

This chapter provides an overview of the SonicWALL SSL VPN user portal. It also includes an introduction to the SRA appliance and its features and applications. This chapter contains the following sections:

•“Virtual Office Overview” section on page 9

•“Browser Requirements” section on page 10

•“Web Management Interface Overview” section on page 12

Virtual Office Overview

SonicWALL SSL VPN Virtual Office provides secure remote access to network resources, such as applications, files, intranet Web sites, and email through Web access interface such as Microsoft Outlook Web Access (OWA). The underlying protocol used for these sessions is SSL.

With SSL VPN, mobile workers, telecommuters, partners, and customers can access information and applications on your intranet or extranet. What information should be accessible to the user is determined by access policies configured by the SonicWALL SSL VPN administrator.

Accessing Virtual Office Resources

Remote network resources can be accessed in the following ways:

•Using a standard Web browser - To access network resources, you must log into the SSL VPN portal. Once authenticated, you may access intranet HTTP and HTTPS sites, offloaded portals, Web-based applications, and Web-based email. In addition, you may upload and download files using FTP or Windows Network File Sharing. All access is performed through a standard Web browser and does not require any client applications to be downloaded to remote users’ machines.

•Using Java thin-client access to corporate desktops and applications – The SonicWALL SRA security appliance includes several Java or ActiveX thin-client programs that can be launched from within the SonicWALL SRA security appliance. Terminal Services and VNC Java clients allow remote users to access corporate servers and desktops, open files, edit and store data as if they were at the office. Terminal Services provides the ability to open individual applications and support remote sound and print services. In addition, users may access Telnet and SSH servers for SSH version 1 (SSHv1) and SSH version 2 (SSHv2), from the SSL VPN portal.

SonicWALL SSL VPN 5.5 User Guide 9