Introduction

reach allows your network users remote access to the documents they work on in your organisation. Whether at home or at any other location, as long as they have an Internet connection they will be able to reach their user files.

Reach almost eradicates then need for users to have access to floppy disk drives, CD writers and USB storage. This means that overall network security is increased.

Features

Reach allows users to access their home directories when not in school. This includes downloading, deleting, renaming and uploading files.

There is also access to a public storage. This could be set up to access your organisation's public directory in order to give students and staff access to shared files.

Reach facilitates the use of a built-in basic messaging system. This can be useful in schools when students are on study leave, are at home ill or need to speak to a teacher that they haven't got time to speak to when they are in school.

In a business environment, reach allows workers to work from home, access documents when abroad and update important files whenever they are not in the office, for example, imagine if you will, accessing those crucial document from work whilst on a long haul flight via a wireless access point whilst onboard a plane enroute to a confrence, never be caught out again.

Security

Security has been the top consideration throughout the development. Reach stores absolutely no passwords in its code or its database. Therefore, as a standalone application, it has access to nothing. Reach cannot access any user directories as it does not have relevant permissions.

When a user logs into reach, they provide the username and password that they use when accessing the school network. This username and password is then used by reach to impersonate that user when connecting to the user's folders and files.

As impersonation is used by reach, there is no need to make any changes to the network's security settings or file permissions. This means that the security of the network is under no increased risk.

Furthermore, reach is fully compatible with modern SSL services. If required, you can also purchase a secure certificate so that all data between your network and your network users will be encrypted. This includes passwords and all documents transferred.

Technical

Reach can be installed onto Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2000 and Windows XP. It can be used in any Active Directory network and on any computer. Reach does not need its own server. It can be installed onto any existing server. Reach accesses the user directories in the same way that any other client PC on the network would.

Reach uses only port 80 for external traffic. This means that no special ports have to be opened by your Internet Service Provider except for allowing the regular web traffic port.

Reach can be installed for access in many different ways. It can be set up for access through http://reach.yourorganisation.com or through http://www.yourorganisation.com/reach or even just an IP address. Either way, you won't fail to achieve all the benefits of this application.

Reach uses ASP .NET 2.0 and therefore needs a Microsoft operating System with IIS and .NET Framework v2.0. Furthermore, reach uses SQL Server Express database system. This is a free DBMS from Microsoft which means that there are no extra setup costs. We recommend using Windows Server 2003.

Final Notes

Should you need another Internet connection for this service, ExtraScope can offer a very competitive ADSL service.

A maintenance package is also available which will allow you to obtain upgrades at no extra cost and priority technical support. Furthermore, as a thank you from us, you will be entitled to a discount on ExtraScope's future products and services.

Pricing

A special Educational price of £750 is available for schools and colleges. This is for a site license which allows use on as many internal networks as you need to. Maintenance will cost £250 per year.

Business prices vary depending on the number of clients you wish to use. Please contact us for details.