I’ve been pushing pretty hard on the web client lately, mostly succeeding, occasionally failing and just trying learn enough to make good recommendations. I’ve got an early recommendation for getting the most functionality out of the web client with the least amount of work:
Stick it behind a VPN
Here is my reasoning. If you just want people to work in GP, key entries, run basic GP reports, use SmartLists and export SmartLists to Excel, the web client runs fine with direct internet access. Its secured via SSL, reconnects well and generally works like GP. No VPN needed.
It gets tougher with SSRS reporting and Excel reports. You CAN expose SSRS to the internet, but there tends to be a mix of issues, technical and political, that keeps most organizations from exposing private reporting to the internet.
Excel reports require 2 things to work, access to the ODC connector file and a pass-through connection to SQL. Excel reports can be deployed both centrally and locally, but even with a local deployment, you’re still assuming that this is a work computer. You have push out the local deployment at some point. (Local deploys go the user’s My Documents area) While away for the holidays, an employee can’t hop on Aunt Sallie’s computer and run Excel reports with a basic web client deployment. There are also going to be concerns with the SQL pass-through need. More so when you consider that the end user isn’t on a PC connected to the domain.
My argument is that if you put this behind a VPN, the user would have access to a shared location for the ODC connection and a more secure tunnel for the SQL access. It’s entirely possible to connect via a VPN from Aunt Sallies house or Starbucks or the airport. The IT department has less work to do because they don’t have to secure all of these pieces individually.
I’m also not convinced that SharePoint makes this any easier. All the companies I see using SharePoint, provide remote access behind a VPN.
The bottom line is this, right now, if you need remote access for users in far flung places the web client works just fine over a direct internet connection. If you need those remote users to be able to really analyze data, the simplest and easiest route is to use the web client behind a VPN.