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    LANLess explained.

    IT Discussion
    networking security architecutre lanless scott alan miller
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    • travisdh1T
      travisdh1 @Romo
      last edited by

      @romo said in LANLess explained.:

      @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

      @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

      @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

      Don't forget tools to manage the workstations. In a LANLess design, you can treat the workstations like they're on a public network and crank the firewall up, and that means you don't rely on the LAN to manage/access workstations.

      I'd say you're most of the way there with just Office 365 or GSuite only if you've gone all the way in (which for GSuite requires Chromebooks unless you're all BYOD)

      We actually have GSuite at my part-time position right now, I just need to get people to actually USE IT. Yep.

      Good luck with that. We have GSuite at my job too, but there's no incentive to fully use it. There's a disconnect between their regular AD login and their GSuite account, and so it doesn't make sense for users to start using this service that seems separated from everything else, and there doesn't seem to be any way to script Google Drive. It makes sense with Chromebooks, since everything gets linked together, and it would make sense with BYOD since your Google account is "how you get in" to the company resources. So unless company culture and structure changes (i.e. get rid of SMB access to the fileserver) there's no good way to ease them into it.

      At with Office 365, from what I hear, you can do SSO with Onedrive and then do redirected folders into the Onedrive folder. Currently I'm working on coming up with a solution using Syncthing.

      You can try setting up G Suite Password Sync (GSPS) to get your AD passwords insync with their GSuite account

      The idea would be to move to G Suite entirely, including file storage with Google Drive. No need for AD, and all credentials managed through admin.google.com

      DashrenderD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • DashrenderD
        Dashrender @travisdh1
        last edited by

        @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

        @romo said in LANLess explained.:

        @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

        @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

        @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

        Don't forget tools to manage the workstations. In a LANLess design, you can treat the workstations like they're on a public network and crank the firewall up, and that means you don't rely on the LAN to manage/access workstations.

        I'd say you're most of the way there with just Office 365 or GSuite only if you've gone all the way in (which for GSuite requires Chromebooks unless you're all BYOD)

        We actually have GSuite at my part-time position right now, I just need to get people to actually USE IT. Yep.

        Good luck with that. We have GSuite at my job too, but there's no incentive to fully use it. There's a disconnect between their regular AD login and their GSuite account, and so it doesn't make sense for users to start using this service that seems separated from everything else, and there doesn't seem to be any way to script Google Drive. It makes sense with Chromebooks, since everything gets linked together, and it would make sense with BYOD since your Google account is "how you get in" to the company resources. So unless company culture and structure changes (i.e. get rid of SMB access to the fileserver) there's no good way to ease them into it.

        At with Office 365, from what I hear, you can do SSO with Onedrive and then do redirected folders into the Onedrive folder. Currently I'm working on coming up with a solution using Syncthing.

        You can try setting up G Suite Password Sync (GSPS) to get your AD passwords insync with their GSuite account

        The idea would be to move to G Suite entirely, including file storage with Google Drive. No need for AD, and all credentials managed through admin.google.com

        That just leaves managing the Windows machines, assuming they aren't BOYD.

        travisdh1T 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • travisdh1T
          travisdh1 @Dashrender
          last edited by

          @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

          @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

          @romo said in LANLess explained.:

          @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

          @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

          @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

          Don't forget tools to manage the workstations. In a LANLess design, you can treat the workstations like they're on a public network and crank the firewall up, and that means you don't rely on the LAN to manage/access workstations.

          I'd say you're most of the way there with just Office 365 or GSuite only if you've gone all the way in (which for GSuite requires Chromebooks unless you're all BYOD)

          We actually have GSuite at my part-time position right now, I just need to get people to actually USE IT. Yep.

          Good luck with that. We have GSuite at my job too, but there's no incentive to fully use it. There's a disconnect between their regular AD login and their GSuite account, and so it doesn't make sense for users to start using this service that seems separated from everything else, and there doesn't seem to be any way to script Google Drive. It makes sense with Chromebooks, since everything gets linked together, and it would make sense with BYOD since your Google account is "how you get in" to the company resources. So unless company culture and structure changes (i.e. get rid of SMB access to the fileserver) there's no good way to ease them into it.

          At with Office 365, from what I hear, you can do SSO with Onedrive and then do redirected folders into the Onedrive folder. Currently I'm working on coming up with a solution using Syncthing.

          You can try setting up G Suite Password Sync (GSPS) to get your AD passwords insync with their GSuite account

          The idea would be to move to G Suite entirely, including file storage with Google Drive. No need for AD, and all credentials managed through admin.google.com

          That just leaves managing the Windows machines, assuming they aren't BOYD.

          Who needs to manage them at that point? Besides making sure updates are downloaded and installed normally, and that they have the latest OS. Those are both automatic and free (currently, subject to change.)

          F DashrenderD scottalanmillerS 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • F
            flaxking @Dashrender
            last edited by

            @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

            @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

            @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

            @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

            @romo said in LANLess explained.:

            @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

            @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

            @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

            Don't forget tools to manage the workstations. In a LANLess design, you can treat the workstations like they're on a public network and crank the firewall up, and that means you don't rely on the LAN to manage/access workstations.

            I'd say you're most of the way there with just Office 365 or GSuite only if you've gone all the way in (which for GSuite requires Chromebooks unless you're all BYOD)

            We actually have GSuite at my part-time position right now, I just need to get people to actually USE IT. Yep.

            Good luck with that. We have GSuite at my job too, but there's no incentive to fully use it. There's a disconnect between their regular AD login and their GSuite account, and so it doesn't make sense for users to start using this service that seems separated from everything else, and there doesn't seem to be any way to script Google Drive. It makes sense with Chromebooks, since everything gets linked together, and it would make sense with BYOD since your Google account is "how you get in" to the company resources. So unless company culture and structure changes (i.e. get rid of SMB access to the fileserver) there's no good way to ease them into it.

            At with Office 365, from what I hear, you can do SSO with Onedrive and then do redirected folders into the Onedrive folder. Currently I'm working on coming up with a solution using Syncthing.

            You can try setting up G Suite Password Sync (GSPS) to get your AD passwords insync with their GSuite account

            Yes, but there is still a disconnect even if the password is the same. I sign and access the files I need vs I sign in and access the files I need and also need to sign into Google file sync/stream. An optimum user abstraction would make it seem to the user that there is only one 'place' where their files are and they don't have to think about it.

            That's not the way of the world anymore.
            Heck MS tried to bring that back (at least in mobile with their HUBS idea - but we all know where that is now). Each vendor wants it's own branding front and center.

            It is achievable with open source tools, but it's kind of a stop-gap thing while we are still exposing users to the OS filesystem

            Give me an example of your achieved via open source tools solution, please.

            I not 100% sure we are talking about the same thing, but here it goes.

            I'm almost done creating a Salt collection (I should turn it into a Salt Formula) that uses Syncthing to Sync folders like Desktop, Documents, etc to a Syncthing 'master' server (essentially replacing Folder Redirection). Therefore whenever one of my user logs on to a workstation that I manage with Salt, their files will get synced without needing to be on the same LAN, just internet connection required.

            It might be possible to do something similar using the Google Drive API

            DashrenderD 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • F
              flaxking @travisdh1
              last edited by

              @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

              @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

              @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

              @romo said in LANLess explained.:

              @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

              @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

              @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

              Don't forget tools to manage the workstations. In a LANLess design, you can treat the workstations like they're on a public network and crank the firewall up, and that means you don't rely on the LAN to manage/access workstations.

              I'd say you're most of the way there with just Office 365 or GSuite only if you've gone all the way in (which for GSuite requires Chromebooks unless you're all BYOD)

              We actually have GSuite at my part-time position right now, I just need to get people to actually USE IT. Yep.

              Good luck with that. We have GSuite at my job too, but there's no incentive to fully use it. There's a disconnect between their regular AD login and their GSuite account, and so it doesn't make sense for users to start using this service that seems separated from everything else, and there doesn't seem to be any way to script Google Drive. It makes sense with Chromebooks, since everything gets linked together, and it would make sense with BYOD since your Google account is "how you get in" to the company resources. So unless company culture and structure changes (i.e. get rid of SMB access to the fileserver) there's no good way to ease them into it.

              At with Office 365, from what I hear, you can do SSO with Onedrive and then do redirected folders into the Onedrive folder. Currently I'm working on coming up with a solution using Syncthing.

              You can try setting up G Suite Password Sync (GSPS) to get your AD passwords insync with their GSuite account

              The idea would be to move to G Suite entirely, including file storage with Google Drive. No need for AD, and all credentials managed through admin.google.com

              That just leaves managing the Windows machines, assuming they aren't BOYD.

              Who needs to manage them at that point? Besides making sure updates are downloaded and installed normally, and that they have the latest OS. Those are both automatic and free (currently, subject to change.)

              LANless doesn't mean leaving users to their own means on company workstations. With something like Salt, it should be easier to manage them than ever. A lot of the time, users are left to report issues with their workstation that could be fixed with routine maintenance (clearing browser cache, etc.), or that could be detected earlier (i.e. running smartmontools to report if there are bad sectors in the hard drive). Before it might have seemed like a daunting task, but with today's tools that is what a modern desktop admin should be doing. Workstations are just servers that serve one person.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • DashrenderD
                Dashrender @travisdh1
                last edited by

                @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

                @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

                @romo said in LANLess explained.:

                @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

                @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                Don't forget tools to manage the workstations. In a LANLess design, you can treat the workstations like they're on a public network and crank the firewall up, and that means you don't rely on the LAN to manage/access workstations.

                I'd say you're most of the way there with just Office 365 or GSuite only if you've gone all the way in (which for GSuite requires Chromebooks unless you're all BYOD)

                We actually have GSuite at my part-time position right now, I just need to get people to actually USE IT. Yep.

                Good luck with that. We have GSuite at my job too, but there's no incentive to fully use it. There's a disconnect between their regular AD login and their GSuite account, and so it doesn't make sense for users to start using this service that seems separated from everything else, and there doesn't seem to be any way to script Google Drive. It makes sense with Chromebooks, since everything gets linked together, and it would make sense with BYOD since your Google account is "how you get in" to the company resources. So unless company culture and structure changes (i.e. get rid of SMB access to the fileserver) there's no good way to ease them into it.

                At with Office 365, from what I hear, you can do SSO with Onedrive and then do redirected folders into the Onedrive folder. Currently I'm working on coming up with a solution using Syncthing.

                You can try setting up G Suite Password Sync (GSPS) to get your AD passwords insync with their GSuite account

                The idea would be to move to G Suite entirely, including file storage with Google Drive. No need for AD, and all credentials managed through admin.google.com

                That just leaves managing the Windows machines, assuming they aren't BOYD.

                Who needs to manage them at that point? Besides making sure updates are downloaded and installed normally, and that they have the latest OS. Those are both automatic and free (currently, subject to change.)

                Because if they are business owned machines, I don't want my users to have local admin rights. So some form of management still needs to take place.

                If you have a reason to not have this, I'm all ears.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • DashrenderD
                  Dashrender @flaxking
                  last edited by

                  @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                  @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                  @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                  @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                  @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                  @romo said in LANLess explained.:

                  @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                  @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

                  @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                  Don't forget tools to manage the workstations. In a LANLess design, you can treat the workstations like they're on a public network and crank the firewall up, and that means you don't rely on the LAN to manage/access workstations.

                  I'd say you're most of the way there with just Office 365 or GSuite only if you've gone all the way in (which for GSuite requires Chromebooks unless you're all BYOD)

                  We actually have GSuite at my part-time position right now, I just need to get people to actually USE IT. Yep.

                  Good luck with that. We have GSuite at my job too, but there's no incentive to fully use it. There's a disconnect between their regular AD login and their GSuite account, and so it doesn't make sense for users to start using this service that seems separated from everything else, and there doesn't seem to be any way to script Google Drive. It makes sense with Chromebooks, since everything gets linked together, and it would make sense with BYOD since your Google account is "how you get in" to the company resources. So unless company culture and structure changes (i.e. get rid of SMB access to the fileserver) there's no good way to ease them into it.

                  At with Office 365, from what I hear, you can do SSO with Onedrive and then do redirected folders into the Onedrive folder. Currently I'm working on coming up with a solution using Syncthing.

                  You can try setting up G Suite Password Sync (GSPS) to get your AD passwords insync with their GSuite account

                  Yes, but there is still a disconnect even if the password is the same. I sign and access the files I need vs I sign in and access the files I need and also need to sign into Google file sync/stream. An optimum user abstraction would make it seem to the user that there is only one 'place' where their files are and they don't have to think about it.

                  That's not the way of the world anymore.
                  Heck MS tried to bring that back (at least in mobile with their HUBS idea - but we all know where that is now). Each vendor wants it's own branding front and center.

                  It is achievable with open source tools, but it's kind of a stop-gap thing while we are still exposing users to the OS filesystem

                  Give me an example of your achieved via open source tools solution, please.

                  I not 100% sure we are talking about the same thing, but here it goes.

                  I'm almost done creating a Salt collection (I should turn it into a Salt Formula) that uses Syncthing to Sync folders like Desktop, Documents, etc to a Syncthing 'master' server (essentially replacing Folder Redirection). Therefore whenever one of my user logs on to a workstation that I manage with Salt, their files will get synced without needing to be on the same LAN, just internet connection required.

                  It might be possible to do something similar using the Google Drive API

                  This sounds good, but is it tenable for someone with many gigs on their desktop? If we discount laptop/mobile users for the moment, the idea of working off cloud only stuff, i.e. no local sync, there's no syncing required at all.

                  Offline access is the sticking point in this.

                  If you have policies in place that prevent huge amounts of data/files from needing to be synced, then the above mentioned syncing solution might be doable for regular users, but in the wild west of people having huge amounts of things to be synced, especially to a new machine, that's a super slow logon process.

                  travisdh1T F 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • scottalanmillerS
                    scottalanmiller @travisdh1
                    last edited by

                    @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

                    @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                    @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

                    @romo said in LANLess explained.:

                    @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                    @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

                    @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                    Don't forget tools to manage the workstations. In a LANLess design, you can treat the workstations like they're on a public network and crank the firewall up, and that means you don't rely on the LAN to manage/access workstations.

                    I'd say you're most of the way there with just Office 365 or GSuite only if you've gone all the way in (which for GSuite requires Chromebooks unless you're all BYOD)

                    We actually have GSuite at my part-time position right now, I just need to get people to actually USE IT. Yep.

                    Good luck with that. We have GSuite at my job too, but there's no incentive to fully use it. There's a disconnect between their regular AD login and their GSuite account, and so it doesn't make sense for users to start using this service that seems separated from everything else, and there doesn't seem to be any way to script Google Drive. It makes sense with Chromebooks, since everything gets linked together, and it would make sense with BYOD since your Google account is "how you get in" to the company resources. So unless company culture and structure changes (i.e. get rid of SMB access to the fileserver) there's no good way to ease them into it.

                    At with Office 365, from what I hear, you can do SSO with Onedrive and then do redirected folders into the Onedrive folder. Currently I'm working on coming up with a solution using Syncthing.

                    You can try setting up G Suite Password Sync (GSPS) to get your AD passwords insync with their GSuite account

                    The idea would be to move to G Suite entirely, including file storage with Google Drive. No need for AD, and all credentials managed through admin.google.com

                    That just leaves managing the Windows machines, assuming they aren't BOYD.

                    Who needs to manage them at that point? Besides making sure updates are downloaded and installed normally, and that they have the latest OS. Those are both automatic and free (currently, subject to change.)

                    Needs to? You might not need to, but you can, and better than ever before.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • travisdh1T
                      travisdh1 @Dashrender
                      last edited by

                      @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                      @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                      @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                      @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                      @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                      @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                      @romo said in LANLess explained.:

                      @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                      @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

                      @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                      Don't forget tools to manage the workstations. In a LANLess design, you can treat the workstations like they're on a public network and crank the firewall up, and that means you don't rely on the LAN to manage/access workstations.

                      I'd say you're most of the way there with just Office 365 or GSuite only if you've gone all the way in (which for GSuite requires Chromebooks unless you're all BYOD)

                      We actually have GSuite at my part-time position right now, I just need to get people to actually USE IT. Yep.

                      Good luck with that. We have GSuite at my job too, but there's no incentive to fully use it. There's a disconnect between their regular AD login and their GSuite account, and so it doesn't make sense for users to start using this service that seems separated from everything else, and there doesn't seem to be any way to script Google Drive. It makes sense with Chromebooks, since everything gets linked together, and it would make sense with BYOD since your Google account is "how you get in" to the company resources. So unless company culture and structure changes (i.e. get rid of SMB access to the fileserver) there's no good way to ease them into it.

                      At with Office 365, from what I hear, you can do SSO with Onedrive and then do redirected folders into the Onedrive folder. Currently I'm working on coming up with a solution using Syncthing.

                      You can try setting up G Suite Password Sync (GSPS) to get your AD passwords insync with their GSuite account

                      Yes, but there is still a disconnect even if the password is the same. I sign and access the files I need vs I sign in and access the files I need and also need to sign into Google file sync/stream. An optimum user abstraction would make it seem to the user that there is only one 'place' where their files are and they don't have to think about it.

                      That's not the way of the world anymore.
                      Heck MS tried to bring that back (at least in mobile with their HUBS idea - but we all know where that is now). Each vendor wants it's own branding front and center.

                      It is achievable with open source tools, but it's kind of a stop-gap thing while we are still exposing users to the OS filesystem

                      Give me an example of your achieved via open source tools solution, please.

                      I not 100% sure we are talking about the same thing, but here it goes.

                      I'm almost done creating a Salt collection (I should turn it into a Salt Formula) that uses Syncthing to Sync folders like Desktop, Documents, etc to a Syncthing 'master' server (essentially replacing Folder Redirection). Therefore whenever one of my user logs on to a workstation that I manage with Salt, their files will get synced without needing to be on the same LAN, just internet connection required.

                      It might be possible to do something similar using the Google Drive API

                      This sounds good, but is it tenable for someone with many gigs on their desktop? If we discount laptop/mobile users for the moment, the idea of working off cloud only stuff, i.e. no local sync, there's no syncing required at all.

                      Offline access is the sticking point in this.

                      If you have policies in place that prevent huge amounts of data/files from needing to be synced, then the above mentioned syncing solution might be doable for regular users, but in the wild west of people having huge amounts of things to be synced, especially to a new machine, that's a super slow logon process.

                      You're missing the point that the data and apps live on the servers, and not on the local workstation. Syncing to the workstation actively inhibits use.

                      DashrenderD F 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • DashrenderD
                        Dashrender @travisdh1
                        last edited by

                        @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

                        @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                        @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                        @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                        @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                        @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                        @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                        @romo said in LANLess explained.:

                        @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                        @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

                        @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                        Don't forget tools to manage the workstations. In a LANLess design, you can treat the workstations like they're on a public network and crank the firewall up, and that means you don't rely on the LAN to manage/access workstations.

                        I'd say you're most of the way there with just Office 365 or GSuite only if you've gone all the way in (which for GSuite requires Chromebooks unless you're all BYOD)

                        We actually have GSuite at my part-time position right now, I just need to get people to actually USE IT. Yep.

                        Good luck with that. We have GSuite at my job too, but there's no incentive to fully use it. There's a disconnect between their regular AD login and their GSuite account, and so it doesn't make sense for users to start using this service that seems separated from everything else, and there doesn't seem to be any way to script Google Drive. It makes sense with Chromebooks, since everything gets linked together, and it would make sense with BYOD since your Google account is "how you get in" to the company resources. So unless company culture and structure changes (i.e. get rid of SMB access to the fileserver) there's no good way to ease them into it.

                        At with Office 365, from what I hear, you can do SSO with Onedrive and then do redirected folders into the Onedrive folder. Currently I'm working on coming up with a solution using Syncthing.

                        You can try setting up G Suite Password Sync (GSPS) to get your AD passwords insync with their GSuite account

                        Yes, but there is still a disconnect even if the password is the same. I sign and access the files I need vs I sign in and access the files I need and also need to sign into Google file sync/stream. An optimum user abstraction would make it seem to the user that there is only one 'place' where their files are and they don't have to think about it.

                        That's not the way of the world anymore.
                        Heck MS tried to bring that back (at least in mobile with their HUBS idea - but we all know where that is now). Each vendor wants it's own branding front and center.

                        It is achievable with open source tools, but it's kind of a stop-gap thing while we are still exposing users to the OS filesystem

                        Give me an example of your achieved via open source tools solution, please.

                        I not 100% sure we are talking about the same thing, but here it goes.

                        I'm almost done creating a Salt collection (I should turn it into a Salt Formula) that uses Syncthing to Sync folders like Desktop, Documents, etc to a Syncthing 'master' server (essentially replacing Folder Redirection). Therefore whenever one of my user logs on to a workstation that I manage with Salt, their files will get synced without needing to be on the same LAN, just internet connection required.

                        It might be possible to do something similar using the Google Drive API

                        This sounds good, but is it tenable for someone with many gigs on their desktop? If we discount laptop/mobile users for the moment, the idea of working off cloud only stuff, i.e. no local sync, there's no syncing required at all.

                        Offline access is the sticking point in this.

                        If you have policies in place that prevent huge amounts of data/files from needing to be synced, then the above mentioned syncing solution might be doable for regular users, but in the wild west of people having huge amounts of things to be synced, especially to a new machine, that's a super slow logon process.

                        You're missing the point that the data and apps live on the servers, and not on the local workstation. Syncing to the workstation actively inhibits use.

                        No, I was replying to @flaxking desire to have files synced all over the place, regardless of what machine he's on.

                        I agree with you, @travisdh1 that having no data local removes these issues. Some things just don't work that way. I.E. CAD, sure you can have VDI CAD solutions, perhaps even RDS CAD solutions. So unless you're offloading those apps to the remote access, you're still going to need local data access for those type of things. But even in the cases where you do offload them, you still haven't abstracted the data storage like you have with O365 and online Word. But then again, neither did @flaxking solution.

                        travisdh1T 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • F
                          flaxking @Dashrender
                          last edited by

                          @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                          @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                          @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                          @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                          @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                          @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                          @romo said in LANLess explained.:

                          @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                          @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

                          @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                          Don't forget tools to manage the workstations. In a LANLess design, you can treat the workstations like they're on a public network and crank the firewall up, and that means you don't rely on the LAN to manage/access workstations.

                          I'd say you're most of the way there with just Office 365 or GSuite only if you've gone all the way in (which for GSuite requires Chromebooks unless you're all BYOD)

                          We actually have GSuite at my part-time position right now, I just need to get people to actually USE IT. Yep.

                          Good luck with that. We have GSuite at my job too, but there's no incentive to fully use it. There's a disconnect between their regular AD login and their GSuite account, and so it doesn't make sense for users to start using this service that seems separated from everything else, and there doesn't seem to be any way to script Google Drive. It makes sense with Chromebooks, since everything gets linked together, and it would make sense with BYOD since your Google account is "how you get in" to the company resources. So unless company culture and structure changes (i.e. get rid of SMB access to the fileserver) there's no good way to ease them into it.

                          At with Office 365, from what I hear, you can do SSO with Onedrive and then do redirected folders into the Onedrive folder. Currently I'm working on coming up with a solution using Syncthing.

                          You can try setting up G Suite Password Sync (GSPS) to get your AD passwords insync with their GSuite account

                          Yes, but there is still a disconnect even if the password is the same. I sign and access the files I need vs I sign in and access the files I need and also need to sign into Google file sync/stream. An optimum user abstraction would make it seem to the user that there is only one 'place' where their files are and they don't have to think about it.

                          That's not the way of the world anymore.
                          Heck MS tried to bring that back (at least in mobile with their HUBS idea - but we all know where that is now). Each vendor wants it's own branding front and center.

                          It is achievable with open source tools, but it's kind of a stop-gap thing while we are still exposing users to the OS filesystem

                          Give me an example of your achieved via open source tools solution, please.

                          I not 100% sure we are talking about the same thing, but here it goes.

                          I'm almost done creating a Salt collection (I should turn it into a Salt Formula) that uses Syncthing to Sync folders like Desktop, Documents, etc to a Syncthing 'master' server (essentially replacing Folder Redirection). Therefore whenever one of my user logs on to a workstation that I manage with Salt, their files will get synced without needing to be on the same LAN, just internet connection required.

                          It might be possible to do something similar using the Google Drive API

                          This sounds good, but is it tenable for someone with many gigs on their desktop? If we discount laptop/mobile users for the moment, the idea of working off cloud only stuff, i.e. no local sync, there's no syncing required at all.

                          Offline access is the sticking point in this.

                          If you have policies in place that prevent huge amounts of data/files from needing to be synced, then the above mentioned syncing solution might be doable for regular users, but in the wild west of people having huge amounts of things to be synced, especially to a new machine, that's a super slow logon process.

                          It syncs in the background, I make it priority for my workstations not to have login wait times. But yes there are limitations to it, and it also can pale in comparison these days to things like file stream. I'm implementing it to replace Folder Redirection (which I hate) and it's mostly just a fancy backup for random user files. My users also don't switch workstations unless they have to. Like I said, it's a stop-gap measure while we still expose users to the OS file system. My goal is to make things as intuitive as possible for my users.

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • F
                            flaxking @travisdh1
                            last edited by

                            @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

                            @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                            @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                            @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                            @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                            @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                            @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                            @romo said in LANLess explained.:

                            @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                            @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

                            @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                            Don't forget tools to manage the workstations. In a LANLess design, you can treat the workstations like they're on a public network and crank the firewall up, and that means you don't rely on the LAN to manage/access workstations.

                            I'd say you're most of the way there with just Office 365 or GSuite only if you've gone all the way in (which for GSuite requires Chromebooks unless you're all BYOD)

                            We actually have GSuite at my part-time position right now, I just need to get people to actually USE IT. Yep.

                            Good luck with that. We have GSuite at my job too, but there's no incentive to fully use it. There's a disconnect between their regular AD login and their GSuite account, and so it doesn't make sense for users to start using this service that seems separated from everything else, and there doesn't seem to be any way to script Google Drive. It makes sense with Chromebooks, since everything gets linked together, and it would make sense with BYOD since your Google account is "how you get in" to the company resources. So unless company culture and structure changes (i.e. get rid of SMB access to the fileserver) there's no good way to ease them into it.

                            At with Office 365, from what I hear, you can do SSO with Onedrive and then do redirected folders into the Onedrive folder. Currently I'm working on coming up with a solution using Syncthing.

                            You can try setting up G Suite Password Sync (GSPS) to get your AD passwords insync with their GSuite account

                            Yes, but there is still a disconnect even if the password is the same. I sign and access the files I need vs I sign in and access the files I need and also need to sign into Google file sync/stream. An optimum user abstraction would make it seem to the user that there is only one 'place' where their files are and they don't have to think about it.

                            That's not the way of the world anymore.
                            Heck MS tried to bring that back (at least in mobile with their HUBS idea - but we all know where that is now). Each vendor wants it's own branding front and center.

                            It is achievable with open source tools, but it's kind of a stop-gap thing while we are still exposing users to the OS filesystem

                            Give me an example of your achieved via open source tools solution, please.

                            I not 100% sure we are talking about the same thing, but here it goes.

                            I'm almost done creating a Salt collection (I should turn it into a Salt Formula) that uses Syncthing to Sync folders like Desktop, Documents, etc to a Syncthing 'master' server (essentially replacing Folder Redirection). Therefore whenever one of my user logs on to a workstation that I manage with Salt, their files will get synced without needing to be on the same LAN, just internet connection required.

                            It might be possible to do something similar using the Google Drive API

                            This sounds good, but is it tenable for someone with many gigs on their desktop? If we discount laptop/mobile users for the moment, the idea of working off cloud only stuff, i.e. no local sync, there's no syncing required at all.

                            Offline access is the sticking point in this.

                            If you have policies in place that prevent huge amounts of data/files from needing to be synced, then the above mentioned syncing solution might be doable for regular users, but in the wild west of people having huge amounts of things to be synced, especially to a new machine, that's a super slow logon process.

                            You're missing the point that the data and apps live on the servers, and not on the local workstation. Syncing to the workstation actively inhibits use.

                            LANless design should ideally be done under the a DevOps mindset, which in this situation means that you shouldn't be doing something counter-intuitive to users even if it is 'the best way' for IT to do it.

                            @Dashrender has a good example with CAD. We are still limited by programs that meet business needs, and business needs come first. We can now easily manage workstations, so that should not be an excuse to invest in expensive infrastructure that we say is 'easy for IT' but less intuitive for users.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • travisdh1T
                              travisdh1 @Dashrender
                              last edited by

                              @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                              @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

                              @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                              @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                              @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                              @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                              @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                              @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                              @romo said in LANLess explained.:

                              @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                              @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

                              @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                              Don't forget tools to manage the workstations. In a LANLess design, you can treat the workstations like they're on a public network and crank the firewall up, and that means you don't rely on the LAN to manage/access workstations.

                              I'd say you're most of the way there with just Office 365 or GSuite only if you've gone all the way in (which for GSuite requires Chromebooks unless you're all BYOD)

                              We actually have GSuite at my part-time position right now, I just need to get people to actually USE IT. Yep.

                              Good luck with that. We have GSuite at my job too, but there's no incentive to fully use it. There's a disconnect between their regular AD login and their GSuite account, and so it doesn't make sense for users to start using this service that seems separated from everything else, and there doesn't seem to be any way to script Google Drive. It makes sense with Chromebooks, since everything gets linked together, and it would make sense with BYOD since your Google account is "how you get in" to the company resources. So unless company culture and structure changes (i.e. get rid of SMB access to the fileserver) there's no good way to ease them into it.

                              At with Office 365, from what I hear, you can do SSO with Onedrive and then do redirected folders into the Onedrive folder. Currently I'm working on coming up with a solution using Syncthing.

                              You can try setting up G Suite Password Sync (GSPS) to get your AD passwords insync with their GSuite account

                              Yes, but there is still a disconnect even if the password is the same. I sign and access the files I need vs I sign in and access the files I need and also need to sign into Google file sync/stream. An optimum user abstraction would make it seem to the user that there is only one 'place' where their files are and they don't have to think about it.

                              That's not the way of the world anymore.
                              Heck MS tried to bring that back (at least in mobile with their HUBS idea - but we all know where that is now). Each vendor wants it's own branding front and center.

                              It is achievable with open source tools, but it's kind of a stop-gap thing while we are still exposing users to the OS filesystem

                              Give me an example of your achieved via open source tools solution, please.

                              I not 100% sure we are talking about the same thing, but here it goes.

                              I'm almost done creating a Salt collection (I should turn it into a Salt Formula) that uses Syncthing to Sync folders like Desktop, Documents, etc to a Syncthing 'master' server (essentially replacing Folder Redirection). Therefore whenever one of my user logs on to a workstation that I manage with Salt, their files will get synced without needing to be on the same LAN, just internet connection required.

                              It might be possible to do something similar using the Google Drive API

                              This sounds good, but is it tenable for someone with many gigs on their desktop? If we discount laptop/mobile users for the moment, the idea of working off cloud only stuff, i.e. no local sync, there's no syncing required at all.

                              Offline access is the sticking point in this.

                              If you have policies in place that prevent huge amounts of data/files from needing to be synced, then the above mentioned syncing solution might be doable for regular users, but in the wild west of people having huge amounts of things to be synced, especially to a new machine, that's a super slow logon process.

                              You're missing the point that the data and apps live on the servers, and not on the local workstation. Syncing to the workstation actively inhibits use.

                              No, I was replying to @flaxking desire to have files synced all over the place, regardless of what machine he's on.

                              I agree with you, @travisdh1 that having no data local removes these issues. Some things just don't work that way. I.E. CAD, sure you can have VDI CAD solutions, perhaps even RDS CAD solutions. So unless you're offloading those apps to the remote access, you're still going to need local data access for those type of things. But even in the cases where you do offload them, you still haven't abstracted the data storage like you have with O365 and online Word. But then again, neither did @flaxking solution.

                              Don't get me started on old/bad CAD software! I can do 95% of everything the expensive CAD packages do at www.tinkercad.com! Now that's off my chest...

                              Yes, CAD/CAM/FEA applications do make things more difficult. Just think about what hosting your CAD applications on an on-demand cloud instance would do for the end users. Of course it's always more expensive to do anything with CAD, but that's an issue no matter where it's being run. Think of something like XenApp that publishes a specific application and also spins up/down Amazon EC2 GPU platforms as needed. Very complicated to get setup initially, but you can't tell me it wouldn't be a better experience for the end user.

                              DashrenderD F 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • DashrenderD
                                Dashrender @travisdh1
                                last edited by Dashrender

                                @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

                                @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                                @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

                                @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                                @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                                @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                                @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                                @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                                @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                                @romo said in LANLess explained.:

                                @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                                @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

                                @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                                Don't forget tools to manage the workstations. In a LANLess design, you can treat the workstations like they're on a public network and crank the firewall up, and that means you don't rely on the LAN to manage/access workstations.

                                I'd say you're most of the way there with just Office 365 or GSuite only if you've gone all the way in (which for GSuite requires Chromebooks unless you're all BYOD)

                                We actually have GSuite at my part-time position right now, I just need to get people to actually USE IT. Yep.

                                Good luck with that. We have GSuite at my job too, but there's no incentive to fully use it. There's a disconnect between their regular AD login and their GSuite account, and so it doesn't make sense for users to start using this service that seems separated from everything else, and there doesn't seem to be any way to script Google Drive. It makes sense with Chromebooks, since everything gets linked together, and it would make sense with BYOD since your Google account is "how you get in" to the company resources. So unless company culture and structure changes (i.e. get rid of SMB access to the fileserver) there's no good way to ease them into it.

                                At with Office 365, from what I hear, you can do SSO with Onedrive and then do redirected folders into the Onedrive folder. Currently I'm working on coming up with a solution using Syncthing.

                                You can try setting up G Suite Password Sync (GSPS) to get your AD passwords insync with their GSuite account

                                Yes, but there is still a disconnect even if the password is the same. I sign and access the files I need vs I sign in and access the files I need and also need to sign into Google file sync/stream. An optimum user abstraction would make it seem to the user that there is only one 'place' where their files are and they don't have to think about it.

                                That's not the way of the world anymore.
                                Heck MS tried to bring that back (at least in mobile with their HUBS idea - but we all know where that is now). Each vendor wants it's own branding front and center.

                                It is achievable with open source tools, but it's kind of a stop-gap thing while we are still exposing users to the OS filesystem

                                Give me an example of your achieved via open source tools solution, please.

                                I not 100% sure we are talking about the same thing, but here it goes.

                                I'm almost done creating a Salt collection (I should turn it into a Salt Formula) that uses Syncthing to Sync folders like Desktop, Documents, etc to a Syncthing 'master' server (essentially replacing Folder Redirection). Therefore whenever one of my user logs on to a workstation that I manage with Salt, their files will get synced without needing to be on the same LAN, just internet connection required.

                                It might be possible to do something similar using the Google Drive API

                                This sounds good, but is it tenable for someone with many gigs on their desktop? If we discount laptop/mobile users for the moment, the idea of working off cloud only stuff, i.e. no local sync, there's no syncing required at all.

                                Offline access is the sticking point in this.

                                If you have policies in place that prevent huge amounts of data/files from needing to be synced, then the above mentioned syncing solution might be doable for regular users, but in the wild west of people having huge amounts of things to be synced, especially to a new machine, that's a super slow logon process.

                                You're missing the point that the data and apps live on the servers, and not on the local workstation. Syncing to the workstation actively inhibits use.

                                No, I was replying to @flaxking desire to have files synced all over the place, regardless of what machine he's on.

                                I agree with you, @travisdh1 that having no data local removes these issues. Some things just don't work that way. I.E. CAD, sure you can have VDI CAD solutions, perhaps even RDS CAD solutions. So unless you're offloading those apps to the remote access, you're still going to need local data access for those type of things. But even in the cases where you do offload them, you still haven't abstracted the data storage like you have with O365 and online Word. But then again, neither did @flaxking solution.

                                Don't get me started on old/bad CAD software! I can do 95% of everything the expensive CAD packages do at www.tinkercad.com! Now that's off my chest...

                                Yes, CAD/CAM/FEA applications do make things more difficult. Just think about what hosting your CAD applications on an on-demand cloud instance would do for the end users. Of course it's always more expensive to do anything with CAD, but that's an issue no matter where it's being run. Think of something like XenApp that publishes a specific application and also spins up/down Amazon EC2 GPU platforms as needed. Very complicated to get setup initially, but you can't tell me it wouldn't be a better experience for the end user.

                                Sure, but the file storage of the data is still exposed. Applications that have dedicated data that's only usable inside that application are easy to move into a LANLess setup, but things like Word Files and CAD drawings, things that you want to share with people are more challenging to keep the underlying storage layer away from the end user.

                                But now we are drifting away from the topic at hand.

                                travisdh1T 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                • travisdh1T
                                  travisdh1 @Dashrender
                                  last edited by

                                  @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                                  @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

                                  @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                                  @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

                                  @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                                  @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                                  @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                                  @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                                  @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                                  @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                                  @romo said in LANLess explained.:

                                  @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                                  @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

                                  @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                                  Don't forget tools to manage the workstations. In a LANLess design, you can treat the workstations like they're on a public network and crank the firewall up, and that means you don't rely on the LAN to manage/access workstations.

                                  I'd say you're most of the way there with just Office 365 or GSuite only if you've gone all the way in (which for GSuite requires Chromebooks unless you're all BYOD)

                                  We actually have GSuite at my part-time position right now, I just need to get people to actually USE IT. Yep.

                                  Good luck with that. We have GSuite at my job too, but there's no incentive to fully use it. There's a disconnect between their regular AD login and their GSuite account, and so it doesn't make sense for users to start using this service that seems separated from everything else, and there doesn't seem to be any way to script Google Drive. It makes sense with Chromebooks, since everything gets linked together, and it would make sense with BYOD since your Google account is "how you get in" to the company resources. So unless company culture and structure changes (i.e. get rid of SMB access to the fileserver) there's no good way to ease them into it.

                                  At with Office 365, from what I hear, you can do SSO with Onedrive and then do redirected folders into the Onedrive folder. Currently I'm working on coming up with a solution using Syncthing.

                                  You can try setting up G Suite Password Sync (GSPS) to get your AD passwords insync with their GSuite account

                                  Yes, but there is still a disconnect even if the password is the same. I sign and access the files I need vs I sign in and access the files I need and also need to sign into Google file sync/stream. An optimum user abstraction would make it seem to the user that there is only one 'place' where their files are and they don't have to think about it.

                                  That's not the way of the world anymore.
                                  Heck MS tried to bring that back (at least in mobile with their HUBS idea - but we all know where that is now). Each vendor wants it's own branding front and center.

                                  It is achievable with open source tools, but it's kind of a stop-gap thing while we are still exposing users to the OS filesystem

                                  Give me an example of your achieved via open source tools solution, please.

                                  I not 100% sure we are talking about the same thing, but here it goes.

                                  I'm almost done creating a Salt collection (I should turn it into a Salt Formula) that uses Syncthing to Sync folders like Desktop, Documents, etc to a Syncthing 'master' server (essentially replacing Folder Redirection). Therefore whenever one of my user logs on to a workstation that I manage with Salt, their files will get synced without needing to be on the same LAN, just internet connection required.

                                  It might be possible to do something similar using the Google Drive API

                                  This sounds good, but is it tenable for someone with many gigs on their desktop? If we discount laptop/mobile users for the moment, the idea of working off cloud only stuff, i.e. no local sync, there's no syncing required at all.

                                  Offline access is the sticking point in this.

                                  If you have policies in place that prevent huge amounts of data/files from needing to be synced, then the above mentioned syncing solution might be doable for regular users, but in the wild west of people having huge amounts of things to be synced, especially to a new machine, that's a super slow logon process.

                                  You're missing the point that the data and apps live on the servers, and not on the local workstation. Syncing to the workstation actively inhibits use.

                                  No, I was replying to @flaxking desire to have files synced all over the place, regardless of what machine he's on.

                                  I agree with you, @travisdh1 that having no data local removes these issues. Some things just don't work that way. I.E. CAD, sure you can have VDI CAD solutions, perhaps even RDS CAD solutions. So unless you're offloading those apps to the remote access, you're still going to need local data access for those type of things. But even in the cases where you do offload them, you still haven't abstracted the data storage like you have with O365 and online Word. But then again, neither did @flaxking solution.

                                  Don't get me started on old/bad CAD software! I can do 95% of everything the expensive CAD packages do at www.tinkercad.com! Now that's off my chest...

                                  Yes, CAD/CAM/FEA applications do make things more difficult. Just think about what hosting your CAD applications on an on-demand cloud instance would do for the end users. Of course it's always more expensive to do anything with CAD, but that's an issue no matter where it's being run. Think of something like XenApp that publishes a specific application and also spins up/down Amazon EC2 GPU platforms as needed. Very complicated to get setup initially, but you can't tell me it wouldn't be a better experience for the end user.

                                  Sure, but the file storage of the data is still exposed. Applications that have dedicated data that's only usable inside that application are easy to move into a LANLess setup, but things like Word Files and CAD drawings, things that you want to share with people are more challenging to keep the underlying storage layer away from the end user.

                                  But now we are drifting away from the topic at hand.

                                  All I heard was
                                  0_1508258648698_4994d49f-6d0a-4dc6-9053-3b4e94a36244-image.png

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • F
                                    flaxking @travisdh1
                                    last edited by

                                    @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

                                    @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                                    @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

                                    @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                                    @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                                    @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                                    @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                                    @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                                    @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                                    @romo said in LANLess explained.:

                                    @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                                    @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

                                    @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                                    Don't forget tools to manage the workstations. In a LANLess design, you can treat the workstations like they're on a public network and crank the firewall up, and that means you don't rely on the LAN to manage/access workstations.

                                    I'd say you're most of the way there with just Office 365 or GSuite only if you've gone all the way in (which for GSuite requires Chromebooks unless you're all BYOD)

                                    We actually have GSuite at my part-time position right now, I just need to get people to actually USE IT. Yep.

                                    Good luck with that. We have GSuite at my job too, but there's no incentive to fully use it. There's a disconnect between their regular AD login and their GSuite account, and so it doesn't make sense for users to start using this service that seems separated from everything else, and there doesn't seem to be any way to script Google Drive. It makes sense with Chromebooks, since everything gets linked together, and it would make sense with BYOD since your Google account is "how you get in" to the company resources. So unless company culture and structure changes (i.e. get rid of SMB access to the fileserver) there's no good way to ease them into it.

                                    At with Office 365, from what I hear, you can do SSO with Onedrive and then do redirected folders into the Onedrive folder. Currently I'm working on coming up with a solution using Syncthing.

                                    You can try setting up G Suite Password Sync (GSPS) to get your AD passwords insync with their GSuite account

                                    Yes, but there is still a disconnect even if the password is the same. I sign and access the files I need vs I sign in and access the files I need and also need to sign into Google file sync/stream. An optimum user abstraction would make it seem to the user that there is only one 'place' where their files are and they don't have to think about it.

                                    That's not the way of the world anymore.
                                    Heck MS tried to bring that back (at least in mobile with their HUBS idea - but we all know where that is now). Each vendor wants it's own branding front and center.

                                    It is achievable with open source tools, but it's kind of a stop-gap thing while we are still exposing users to the OS filesystem

                                    Give me an example of your achieved via open source tools solution, please.

                                    I not 100% sure we are talking about the same thing, but here it goes.

                                    I'm almost done creating a Salt collection (I should turn it into a Salt Formula) that uses Syncthing to Sync folders like Desktop, Documents, etc to a Syncthing 'master' server (essentially replacing Folder Redirection). Therefore whenever one of my user logs on to a workstation that I manage with Salt, their files will get synced without needing to be on the same LAN, just internet connection required.

                                    It might be possible to do something similar using the Google Drive API

                                    This sounds good, but is it tenable for someone with many gigs on their desktop? If we discount laptop/mobile users for the moment, the idea of working off cloud only stuff, i.e. no local sync, there's no syncing required at all.

                                    Offline access is the sticking point in this.

                                    If you have policies in place that prevent huge amounts of data/files from needing to be synced, then the above mentioned syncing solution might be doable for regular users, but in the wild west of people having huge amounts of things to be synced, especially to a new machine, that's a super slow logon process.

                                    You're missing the point that the data and apps live on the servers, and not on the local workstation. Syncing to the workstation actively inhibits use.

                                    No, I was replying to @flaxking desire to have files synced all over the place, regardless of what machine he's on.

                                    I agree with you, @travisdh1 that having no data local removes these issues. Some things just don't work that way. I.E. CAD, sure you can have VDI CAD solutions, perhaps even RDS CAD solutions. So unless you're offloading those apps to the remote access, you're still going to need local data access for those type of things. But even in the cases where you do offload them, you still haven't abstracted the data storage like you have with O365 and online Word. But then again, neither did @flaxking solution.

                                    Don't get me started on old/bad CAD software! I can do 95% of everything the expensive CAD packages do at www.tinkercad.com! Now that's off my chest...

                                    Yes, CAD/CAM/FEA applications do make things more difficult. Just think about what hosting your CAD applications on an on-demand cloud instance would do for the end users. Of course it's always more expensive to do anything with CAD, but that's an issue no matter where it's being run. Think of something like XenApp that publishes a specific application and also spins up/down Amazon EC2 GPU platforms as needed. Very complicated to get setup initially, but you can't tell me it wouldn't be a better experience for the end user.

                                    There are some things no amount of IT magic can fix without degraded user experience. I have tested out amazon appstream 2.0 and wasn't impressed. Sometimes you just have to design your solution with how the application was intended to be used a the front of your mind. Application developers have to be on board with LANless applications, IT can't do it all.

                                    travisdh1T 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • travisdh1T
                                      travisdh1 @flaxking
                                      last edited by

                                      @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                                      @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

                                      @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                                      @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

                                      @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                                      @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                                      @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                                      @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                                      @dashrender said in LANLess explained.:

                                      @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                                      @romo said in LANLess explained.:

                                      @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                                      @travisdh1 said in LANLess explained.:

                                      @flaxking said in LANLess explained.:

                                      Don't forget tools to manage the workstations. In a LANLess design, you can treat the workstations like they're on a public network and crank the firewall up, and that means you don't rely on the LAN to manage/access workstations.

                                      I'd say you're most of the way there with just Office 365 or GSuite only if you've gone all the way in (which for GSuite requires Chromebooks unless you're all BYOD)

                                      We actually have GSuite at my part-time position right now, I just need to get people to actually USE IT. Yep.

                                      Good luck with that. We have GSuite at my job too, but there's no incentive to fully use it. There's a disconnect between their regular AD login and their GSuite account, and so it doesn't make sense for users to start using this service that seems separated from everything else, and there doesn't seem to be any way to script Google Drive. It makes sense with Chromebooks, since everything gets linked together, and it would make sense with BYOD since your Google account is "how you get in" to the company resources. So unless company culture and structure changes (i.e. get rid of SMB access to the fileserver) there's no good way to ease them into it.

                                      At with Office 365, from what I hear, you can do SSO with Onedrive and then do redirected folders into the Onedrive folder. Currently I'm working on coming up with a solution using Syncthing.

                                      You can try setting up G Suite Password Sync (GSPS) to get your AD passwords insync with their GSuite account

                                      Yes, but there is still a disconnect even if the password is the same. I sign and access the files I need vs I sign in and access the files I need and also need to sign into Google file sync/stream. An optimum user abstraction would make it seem to the user that there is only one 'place' where their files are and they don't have to think about it.

                                      That's not the way of the world anymore.
                                      Heck MS tried to bring that back (at least in mobile with their HUBS idea - but we all know where that is now). Each vendor wants it's own branding front and center.

                                      It is achievable with open source tools, but it's kind of a stop-gap thing while we are still exposing users to the OS filesystem

                                      Give me an example of your achieved via open source tools solution, please.

                                      I not 100% sure we are talking about the same thing, but here it goes.

                                      I'm almost done creating a Salt collection (I should turn it into a Salt Formula) that uses Syncthing to Sync folders like Desktop, Documents, etc to a Syncthing 'master' server (essentially replacing Folder Redirection). Therefore whenever one of my user logs on to a workstation that I manage with Salt, their files will get synced without needing to be on the same LAN, just internet connection required.

                                      It might be possible to do something similar using the Google Drive API

                                      This sounds good, but is it tenable for someone with many gigs on their desktop? If we discount laptop/mobile users for the moment, the idea of working off cloud only stuff, i.e. no local sync, there's no syncing required at all.

                                      Offline access is the sticking point in this.

                                      If you have policies in place that prevent huge amounts of data/files from needing to be synced, then the above mentioned syncing solution might be doable for regular users, but in the wild west of people having huge amounts of things to be synced, especially to a new machine, that's a super slow logon process.

                                      You're missing the point that the data and apps live on the servers, and not on the local workstation. Syncing to the workstation actively inhibits use.

                                      No, I was replying to @flaxking desire to have files synced all over the place, regardless of what machine he's on.

                                      I agree with you, @travisdh1 that having no data local removes these issues. Some things just don't work that way. I.E. CAD, sure you can have VDI CAD solutions, perhaps even RDS CAD solutions. So unless you're offloading those apps to the remote access, you're still going to need local data access for those type of things. But even in the cases where you do offload them, you still haven't abstracted the data storage like you have with O365 and online Word. But then again, neither did @flaxking solution.

                                      Don't get me started on old/bad CAD software! I can do 95% of everything the expensive CAD packages do at www.tinkercad.com! Now that's off my chest...

                                      Yes, CAD/CAM/FEA applications do make things more difficult. Just think about what hosting your CAD applications on an on-demand cloud instance would do for the end users. Of course it's always more expensive to do anything with CAD, but that's an issue no matter where it's being run. Think of something like XenApp that publishes a specific application and also spins up/down Amazon EC2 GPU platforms as needed. Very complicated to get setup initially, but you can't tell me it wouldn't be a better experience for the end user.

                                      There are some things no amount of IT magic can fix without degraded user experience. I have tested out amazon appstream 2.0 and wasn't impressed. Sometimes you just have to design your solution with how the application was intended to be used a the front of your mind. Application developers have to be on board with LANless applications, IT can't do it all.

                                      True. Tinkercad has proven that you don't need a local app just to do CAD work, so sorry developers, but no excuses.

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                                      • dafyreD
                                        dafyre
                                        last edited by

                                        I find that I am pretty much LANles now... NextCloud for my files, GMail for my email... I can blow my laptop away and not even blink.

                                        travisdh1T 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                                        • travisdh1T
                                          travisdh1 @dafyre
                                          last edited by

                                          @dafyre said in LANLess explained.:

                                          I find that I am pretty much LANles now... NextCloud for my files, GMail for my email... I can blow my laptop away and not even blink.

                                          Yeah. I've got every game I care about connected to my Steam account as well, so I don't even care about blowing my gaming rig away. In fact I've done just that about once a year.

                                          momurdaM 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • scottalanmillerS
                                            scottalanmiller
                                            last edited by

                                            Steam... the core of the LANless model, lol.

                                            travisdh1T 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
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