No need to provide Laptops for external contractors
External contractors can use their own PC's
The use of external contractors is growing rapidly as organizations attempt to reduce costs by outsourcing operations to external contractors or to companies with large scale specializations.
Such an outsourcing process almost always involves the issue of opening up key IT applications to external people.
This is often a long, complex, and very costly process requiring expensive changes to existing IT infrastructures. In many cases, companies decide to provide dedicated PC equipment for each external contractor.
The policies, the processes, and proper handling of Laptops to deal with the security risks for external contractors represent a significant cost for those organizations that follow their policies.
G/On represents significant simplifications for a company with the need to allow external contractors access to applications and data.
Contrary to VPN based solutions, G/On does not connect remote PC’s to your network. G/On connects users to applications and once and for all avoids the issues known from using VPN’s to connect users from different networks.
1. The challenge
The underlying problem IT departments are faced with in this situation is Network-to-Network connectivity. External contractors are either working out of their house or from another office. In either case, you need to connect users from an unknown network and give them access to resources on your own network. The most widely used solution is based on VPNs and while a VPN gives the desired access it literally connects the two networks together as if it is one single network. Consequently, IT departments must implement numerous additional tools to prevent the open access between the two networks.
If you are working with multiple external contractor organizations, you are dealing with multiple different networks, different IT organizations, and different security and IT policies. Using VPN based solutions for providing access for external contractors is not a scalable approach. Some organizations require the external contractors to build new networks that are 100% isolated from the contractor’s normal network. So, in this case, the burden is put on the external contractor to build isolated networks for each of their customers. The contractors are also required to install dedicated PCs and the consultants must physically move around between the PC’s when they need to work for different customers.
2. The solution
G/On is the perfect solution for allowing users on one network to get access to applications and resources on another network.
Because G/On does not connect the remote PC to the company network, G/On can be used on almost any PC with Internet access. G/On’s virtual connection and the unique “Lock-to-Process” functionality isolates the remote PC from your network and prevents malicious software from finding its way into your network.
The company outsourcing certain operational task to an external contractor installs a G/On Server inside their network. Each external consultant gets a G/On Client either on a special USB or installed on the PC. The consultant can use the G/On USB and insert to any PC (company PC, home PC, a PC at other clients, etc). The G/On USB will connect to the G/On Server and the remote PC’s will only be connected to the G/On Server and not to the company’s network. The G/On Server is configured to provide the user with a menu of applications relevant for the user. And, the user will only have access to these applications.
The applications can be any client/server solution and the application client can be installed on the remote PC or – if possible – be stored on the G/On USB.
Many organizations enable access to Citrix or to Microsoft Terminal Services. In that case, the external contractors will have access to those applications and file shares configured for Citrix or Terminal Services. One of the benefits of using Citrix or Terminal Services together with G/On is that the solution can be configured to prevent data from leaving the company network. Rather than taking data out of the network for off-line processing, G/On will connect users to the Citrix or Terminal Server session where they can process the data without running the risk of misplacing confidential and sensitive data.
3. The benefits
Rather than spending months and months of network configurations and policies, an external contractor can get access to relevant applications within a few minutes.
The external contractors get a solution where they know that they are only granted access to the relevant applications. And they know that they can use the G/On USB from any PC that they have access to. That means improved flexibility and productivity for the contractors and it means more value for their customers.
4. More Information
The G/On USB is a combined authentication and connectivity device. It can also be used as a storage device for those application clients that the user needs to launch to connect to the corresponding application server.
One example is a Citrix client. Normally, the Citrix client needs to be physically installed (through an installation process) on the remote PC. However, in many cases, it’s not an option or simply not possible to install the full Citrix client on any PC you want to use for your remote connection.
Giritech is addressing this issue by working together with Thinstall that allows us to create a special packaged version of the Citrix client fully integrated with G/On. This makes it possible to bring along with you the full Citrix client on the G/On USB and consequently turning Citrix into a true portable and secure remote access solution.
See also Giritech Solution Guides for Mobile Workers, Working from home/Tele Commuting, Data Loss Prevention, and Access to your office Desktop.
