Our office is moving everything to the cloud so that employees have access from home, jobs sites, etc. I need to figure out the best solution for providing remote access for my Clarion app that we use.
Has anyone used TS Plus to allow web access to their Clarion desktop apps.
https://tsplus.net/ or https://www.terminalserviceplus.com/
Or is there any other similar low cost solutions to provide web access to a Clarion desktop app?
There are many companies using Clarion application over TSPlus.
It’s a pretty popular solution in our community.
There is a Skype group specifically for Clarion developer and TSPlus that is pretty active.
Let some know here if you’d like to be added to the group.
Rick,
Thanks for the reply. I am having issues downloading the trial version to see how it works. It seems reasonably priced, but I wanted to see if this was a solution that has been working successfully with other Clarion app users before I look into purchasing the product.
Are they getting rid of the workstations?
When I used to look after some windows networks, I had it setup so people can just remotely access their workstation.
It just meant having workstations switched on all the time and RDP enabled, then they logged into a special website address for the company something like https://remote.companydomain.com where they could select the workstation to log onto.
Edit.
This might be of interest to you as well, if you havent already seen it.
About Remote Desktop Services - Win32 apps | Microsoft Docs
I have been using TSPlus to host my application for several years. The amount of work it takes to put your application on the web using TSPlus can be very simple. You can also offer several different ways to access your application from a full desktop to html5. I use the html5 option which allows you to host your application in a web browser. This works very well. I second what Rick said that you should join the Skype Clarion / TSPlus group. The North American Rep for TSPlus is a member there along with several users who will quickly answer these questions.
No, not getting rid of the workstations. As new managers are hired though they are getting laptops with docking stations instead of desktops. Everything is accessible via Microsoft Sharepoint. Covid made working from home a more regular possible option for employees. Unfortunately Clarion window Apps do not play well with the cloud aspect. With the 3rd party integrations into my application the Clarion Any Screen solution does not work either. They want employees to have access to all office related data from any device with internet access. So even the filed personnel can have access.
We have been using Parallels for years with a smaller hosting company for our SAAS offering. We’ve had potential entities asking us to use Microsoft’s Azure for US Government hosting platform. Pricing is complicated, but it seems it will be cheaper than the Parallels solution.
So with the laptops, IF their home internet access is fast enough and the work internet access to the server is fast enough and can handle it, VPN may be an option. UDP VPN is faster than TCP VPN because TCP has to send back that acknowledgement packet. The stronger encryption used on the VPN can also slow things up a bit. Its a trade off when net access is slow.
What makes Terminal Server/Remote Desktop viable is its just shifting screen pixels down to the remote user from an office workstation or a cloud/virtual desktop. The app’s work is done on the office workstation or cloud server, the remote worker is only seeing pixels with some extra abilities to map their local resources (drives, usb sticks, printers) to the server desktop (which has been a security risk in the past and could still be FYI).
So if the remote workforce has slow internet access, terminal server/remote desktop can compensate by downgrading the colour scheme to just 256 grey scale ie running it in black and white with a smaller screen resolution. The higher the color scale, the better the internet access has to be, the higher the screen resolution ie 1920x1080 compared to 640x480, the better the internet access to be.
Its why linux command line users can run over GPRS (2.5G) over the mobile phone network because they are just sending and receiving ascii which is a tiny data set compared to pixel data sets.
Both methods VPN or Windows Remote Desktop allow access to UNC server shares \shared\personal\drive which can then be mapped to a S: drive.
When you say this, I’m assuming some sort of OLE, COM or COM+?
OLE & COM will work with both VPN and Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) which is Terminal Server/Remote Desktop etc because the with VPN the app is running on the remote workers laptop, with Terminal Server/Remote Desktop, its running on the workstation or cloud server. However you need to be aware of this with your server Clarion 10/11 program running on Windows Server Core - #11 by anon23294430
some server versions wont have OLE.
COM+ is distributed COM, so I can use COM+ to do stuff to other workstations computers, its how software installers can push new software to be installed automatically on someone’s workstation. Setupbuilder doesnt do this, but things like ESET AV does push installation onto workstation. This is also a security risk that is worth bearing in mind, its a MS technology you might want disabled using group policy, otherwise someone could push any malware onto a laptop sat in a coffee shop where the free wifi doesnt have “isolation” enabled"
If you decide to test the VPN route, the IP driver is perfect this situation, you can run the IP driver through the VPN to the IP server in the office.
There is also nothing stopping you from having both VPN and Remote Desktop running with your app at the same time for redundancy purposes.
You could even put the web server terminal server login page behind the VPN so they have to get past VPN security first before being able to access inside the work network.
Obviously if you do this, the extra layer of encryption by hiding behind the VPN will also add to the bandwidth load, so its a trade off if you dont have super fast broadband.
If you are based in the UK, something else ADSL users can do to get the maximum speed out of their ADSL connections (doesnt apply to Cable like Virgin or Fibre to the Property/Ethernet to the property), is to just plug the router into the master socket and disconnect all phone extension wiring spurred off the master socket.
Having extension sockets connected to the master socket can drop an 80Mb connection to as low as 18Mb! Just as a FYI.
I can connect to the ADSL cabinet faster than the broadband package allows, so my internet connection is throttled to the maximum speed the package allowed.
Something to consider if anyone is planning on using mobile internet access, is the data is sent in bursts, which can make the desktop experience somewhat jerky. Wired internet access allows for a smoother desktop experience, its the nature of the different networks where voice has top priority and mobile internet is secondary along with text messages. Even text messages dont have to be delivered for 24hrs which means it cant always be relied on for 2FA, but in practice that doesnt happen often.
Anyway I think that gives a brief overview of the various factors involved in remote working.
We’re also using TS Plus and would recommend it. We have it’s across approximately 20 servers for different customers.
(I would be interested in joining the Skype group).
Dear colleague, I completely understand you, especially if your forms have several tables on one form and if you use drag and drop, TSPlus is not an option. TSPlus is an option if you have simpler forms and do not use drag and drop and multi select from list boxes to list boxes, etc. You see that other respected colleagues refer you to TSPlus, and many of them have a sales deal with this remote service. My program with 116 tables in the relation and the maximum functionality of the program, I uploaded and deployed to the RED HAT cloud. Their devops is the best at the moment and the cheapest for all win32 apps.
I uploaded and deployed to the RED HAT cloud. Their devops is the best at the moment and the cheapest for all win32 apps.
I uploaded and deployed to the RED HAT cloud. Their devops is the best at the moment and the cheapest for all win32 apps 
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Dean, I don’t know exactly what you are saying.
I can guarantee that I don’t have a financial interest in TSPlus or receive anything for recommending it as a solution.
An update form in Clarion over TSPlus is not limited by the number of tables on the form. I have some large forms with many controls and tables involved that work without problems.
Also, what kind of drag and drop doesn’t work? Certainly, drag and drop between windows works fine. Drag and drop from you client desktop to a tsplus application would not work. Maybe that’s what you’re referring to. You can upload the file to the TSPlus server and then select it, if your application supports selecting a file from the system.
Hi Rick
I have used TSPlus for 6+ years and have no issues however I would like to be added to the Skype group please.
BTW I would definitely recommend TSPlus