Tag: remote access

Increasingly every home-networking equipment vendor is pitching a mid-range or high-end router range that offers “cloud” abilities and features. This kind of feature was simply offered as a remote-access feature but is being marketed under the cloud term, used as a way to make their devices appear to look cool to the customers.

These features are more about simplifying the process of providing authorised users remote access to the control functionality and similar features on these devices and providing this kind of access to someone who is using a smartphone or tablet. It also extends to file access for those of us who connect an external hard disk to these devices to purpose them as network storage.

What benefits does this offer for the home network router

The key feature that is offered for these devices is the ability to allow you to manage them from any Internet connection. This may be about troubleshooting your connection or locking down the Internet connection for rarely-occupied premises like a holiday home or city apartment.

If you connect an external hard disk to your cloud-capable router, you would have the same remote-access functionality as a cloud-capable NAS. This means that you could put and get data while you are on the road using your regular or mobile computing device and an Internet connection.

Some vendors integrate an application-level gateway to their cloud-assisted network services like video surveillance as part of this cloud functionality. This allows you to gain access to these services from the same point of entry as you are provided for your router.

How is this achieved

Like the cloud NAS, this involves the vendor providing a dynamic DNS service to aid in discovery of your router along with the use of SSL and other technologies to create a secure path to your router’s management dashboard.

It is also assisted with a client-side app for the mobile computing platforms so as to provide an integrated operational experience for your smartphone or tablet. This caters for items like access to the notification list, use of the interface style that is distinctive for the platform as well as the ability to get and put files according to what the platform allows.

Vendors who offer other cloud-based services would provide an application-level gateway in the router that ties in with these services and the devices that benefit from them. This is to provide a tight and finished user experience across all of their devices on your network, and is a way to keep you “vendor-loyal”.

Current limitations with this setup and what can be done

As we head towards cloud-capable network devices and add more of these devices to our networks, we will end up with a situation where we have to remember multiple Web addresses and user logins for each of these destinations. The manufacturers like D-Link would exploit this by integrating the cloud functionality for all of their devices or, more likely, devices within certain product ranges so that a user comes in to one entry point to benefit from the cloud functionality for that manufacturer’s device universe.

But the reality is that most of us would create a heterogenous network with devices supplied by different manufacturers and of different product classes. Here, one would have to keep a list of usernames, passwords and Web entry points or install multiple apps on a mobile device to benefit from every device’s cloud functionality.

Similarly, a manufacturer would be interested in evolving their “cloud-side” part of the equation for newer products but could place older products at risk of being shut out. Here, they could maintain the same functionality by keeping the remote access functionality alive and passing stability and security improvements to those of us who maintain the older devices.

Of course, working on systems that are true to industry standards and specifications like TR-069 for remote management can allow for pure interoperability and a future-proof environment. It can also allow for increased flexibility and the ability for third parties to provide the “cloud router” services with their own functionality and branding.

There is a new trend that is affecting how we store data on our home computers and in our home network.

The three-island trend

This is the existence of three data islands

• The main secondary storage that is part of our regular or mobile computing devices
• A Network-attached storage system or a removeable hard disk.

The NAS would serve as a network-wide common storage destination as well as having ability to serve media data to network-capable media playback devices without the need for a PC to be on all the time. On the other hand, the removeable hard disk simply is used as an auxiliary storage destination for a particular regular computer.

• A Cloud or remote storage service

The remote storage services like Dropbox or SkyDrive are typically used either for offsite data backup or as a data drop-off point that exists across the Internet. Most of these services work on a “freemium” business model where you have a small storage capacity available for free but you are able to rent more capacity as you need it. Some of these providers may work alongside hardware or software partners in opening up increased storage space for users of the hardware or software sold by these partners. In the same case, the remote storage services are increasingly offering business-focused packages that are optimised for reliability and security either on a similar freemium model or simply as a saleable service.

The role of file-management and backup software

Previously, backup software was charged with regularly sending copies of data that existed on a computer’s main secondary storage to removeable storage, a network-attached storage system or, in some cases, remote storage services.

New requirements

Tiered data storage

Now this software is charged with backup not just out to removeable or local-network storage, but to be able to set up storage tiers amongst this storage and remote storage. This is a practice that is familiar with large-business computing where high-cost high-availability storage is used for data that is needed most, cheaper medium-availability storage for data that isn’t as needed like untouched accounts with the cheapest, slowest storage media used for archival purposes or for data that doesn’t change.

The remote storage and the NAS or removable storage can each serve as one of these tiers depending on the capacity that the device or service offers.

Remote storage serves as temporary data location

In some cases, the remote storage may exist simply as a data drop-off point between a backup client on a portable computer and a backup agent on a network-attached storage device as part of a remote backup routine. Here, a user may back up the portable computer to a particular share in something like Dropbox. Then an agent program built in to a small-business or high-end consumer NAS would check that share and move or copy the data from Dropbox to the NAS.

Similarly, a remote storage service could work alongside a locally-installed network-attached-storage and another NAS installed at another premises for asynchronous data transfer between these devices. This can be useful if one of these devices isn’t always accessible due to unreliable power or Internet service.

In the case of that small business that starts to add branches, this concept can work well with sharing business data such as price lists or customer information between the branches. Businesses that work on the “storefront-plus-home-office” model could benefit this way by allowing changes to be propagated between locations, again using the remote storage service as a buffer.

Remote storage serves as a share-point

In some cases, a remote-storage service like Dropbox can permit you to share data like a huge image / video album between multiple people. Here, they can have access to the content via a Web page or simply download the content to local storage. In some cases, this could be about copying that image / video collection of a wedding to the “DLNA” folders on a NAS so they can view these pictures on that Samsung Smart TV anytime.

What does the software need

Backup software needs to identify file collections that exist in a backup job and make the extra copies that appear at different locations, whether as different folders on the same target drive or at a different target location. Similar a timed backup job could also encompass synchronisation or “shifting” of other file collections to one or more target locations.

Similarly, the backup routine isn’t just about “copy and compress” files to a large metafile before trransferring it to the backup destination. It is about working the collection file-by-file according to the destination.

You could do this with most software by adding extra backup jobs with different parameters. But this involves creating more large metafiles with most backup software. Here, file-synchronisation software could perform the job better by working at the file level.

Support for remote data storage in a NAS

Some network-attached-storage devices, especially those that work on an application-driven platform, work as clients to remote storage services. Here, this can cater for off-site file replication or “data-fetching” setups without a desktop or laptop computer having to be on all the time.

In some setups where portability is considered paramount, the idea of a NAS using remote data storage can allow a user to temporarily hold files destined for the remote data storage service on a NAS that is offline as far as the Internet is concerned. Then the NAS is just connected to the Internet to synchronise the files with a remote storage service.

Similarly, a media file collection that is shared via a remote data storage service like Dropbox may then end up on a NAS primarily to be made available to DLNA client devices at all times as well as not occupying precious disk space on the computer. This may be relevant for one or more large video files or a collection of many photos from that special occasion.

Conclusion

As we start to see the concept of the “three-island” data storage arrangement in our home and small-business networks, we well have to be able to work with these arrangements whether by copying or moving the data between the different storage “islands”.

UPnP Forum standard page – RemoteAccess:1

The UPnP Forum have this week released a Device Class Profile for setting up networks for inter-network operation and remote access. This is mainly to permit:

a) UPnP devices to work across multiple logical networks and

b) UPnP methods to be used for inter-network configuration

What is involved

The standard encompasses public-network-discovery mechanisms like STUN for determining the type of upstream NAT device in the Internet network and dynamic DNS for establishing the IP address for the main network’s fully-qualified Internet name. Some of these standards are implemented through VoIP setups to permit discovery of the VoIP network.

It also involves the establishment of secure VPN or DirectAccess (IPv6 over IPv4) tunnels between networks for this purpose. This doesn’t depend on a particular tunnelling method like PPTP, IPSec or SSL, but is more about establishing the tunnels between the networks.

There is also the establishment of UPnP “device relays” at each end of the tunnel so that UPnP entities (devices or services) in one network can be seen by similar entities in another network.

The standard also includes methods to permit replicated setup and teardown of devices and services between both networks. This would happen when the link is established or torn down or as UPnP devices come on line and go off line while the link is alive.

Abilities

The-access or client network can be a simple single-subnet private network such as a home network, small-business network or public-access network. Larger corporate networks can qualify if the firewall at the network’s edge doesn’t specifically exclude UPnP Remote Access.

The master network which the remote device is visiting must be a simple single-subnet private network such as a home network or small-business network. The remote access server can be part of the network-Internet “edge” device like the typical "VPN endpoint” router sold to small businesses or can be a separate piece or hardware or software existing on that same network. In the latter case, the server would have to work properly with a UPnP-compliant router (which most routers sold through the retail channel are) and obtain the network’s outside IP address and set up port-forward rules through that same device. 

The value of UPnP Remote Access with corporate networks needs to be assessed, both in the context of network security for high-value data as well as interaction with established VPN setups. This can also include issues like the “other” network gaining access to UPnP devices on the local network or particular devices or device classes being visible across the tunnel.

What needs to happen

This standard needs to permit the user to establish or simple yet secure credential-delivery method for VPNs that extend the small networks. This may involve implementing methods similar to either use of a PIN when pairing Bluetooth devices, “push-push” WPS –style configuration or, for “deploy then establish” setups, an email-based system similar to what is being used to confirm user intent when people sign up for Internet forums and social networks; or other similar practices.

The latter situation would appeal to setups where, at one end of the link, there isn’t likely to be a regular client computer in place, such as CCTV and telemetry applications or remote servers.

Compliant systems may also need to support two or more different methods to cater for whether the logical networks are in the same building or afar; or for whether the user prefers to deploy the equipment then configure it remotely or configure all the equipment at one location before deploying it.

Why would this technology end up being useful

One main reason for this development would be to extend the UPnP technologies to VoIP setups. This would then allow for home and small business to benefit from corporate-class telephony setups like tie-lines, common phone books, logical extensions and the like as well as easy-to-implement VoIP telephony.

Another application would be to enable access to existing UPnP devices in other locations. The common reason would be to benefit from multimedia content held at home from a hotel room or to synchronise such content between NAS boxes installed at home and a vacation property. Other applications that come to mind would include remote management of UPnP devices that are part of building control, safety and security such as central heating or alarm systems.

Parts of this standard may be implemented by router and remote-access software vendors as a way of establishing a “box-box” or “box-PC” VPN setup between two small networks like a home network and a small-office network. This could allow the small-business operator to benefit from the VPN setup that big businesses often benefit from, thus allowing for increased yet secure network flexibility.