Connect Remote Clients to a Network by Using Dial-up

Applies To: Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2

Remote workers need a simple solution to remotely access their corporate e-mail accounts and shared files from home or from other locations outside the corporate network. Although once the primary method for connecting to a remote network, dial-up access has mostly been supplanted by VPN over the Internet. However when a VPN connection over the Internet is not available, dial-up remote access provides an almost universal solution by using the public phone network infrastructure to connect to a remote access server.

RRAS on Windows Server provides traditional dial-up remote access to support mobile users or home users who are dialing in to organization intranets. The RRAS server answers incoming connection requests from dial-up networking clients. The RRAS server answers the call, authenticates and authorizes the caller, and transfers data between the dial-up networking client and the organization intranet.

The following illustration shows dial-up networking functionality.