Easy External Intranet Access

The following is a use case for how BarracudaDrive can be used as an easier alternative to a company wide VPN deployment. If you are a business owner that needs easy external Intranet access, then BarracudaDrive may be the solution for you.

The Barracuda HTTP tunnel provides an easy and convenient method for remote use of Internet/Intranet software. Your standard Internet software is configured to use the HTTP tunnel proxy for access to your company's LAN. In addition, the tunnel allows collaboration from access points not accessible to VPN solutions such as from behind external company firewalls. The Barracuda HTTPS tunnel also supports a direct tunnel for Internet software that does not support proxying, such as TELNET, FTP, VNC, etc.. Another solution for non proxying Internet software is to use a small freeware application called FreeCap. This tool provides an easy way to run virtually any Internet software through the HTTPS tunnel client. One can simply drag and drop Internet software into the SocksCap box. The Internet software will instantly and automatically be part of your company's Intranet as soon as the application is dropped into the SocksCap box. Employees working externally with a permanent office computer can use one of the many free VNC clients and securely connect to the office computer. VNC lets the employee see and interact with desktop applications in the office computer. The Barracuda HTTP tunnel secures the normally untrusted VNC connections. Hackers cannot gain access to your LAN since you can keep all ports in the company firewall closed, except for port 443 (HTTPS), which is forwarded to the BarracudaDrive server.

In addition to the HTTPS tunnel, BarracudaDrive provides a secure file system server that allows your employees to collaborate and exchange any kind of document stored on the company server. Remote and local users can easily exchange Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, etc. using the secure file server.

The high performance BarracudaDrive web server can be used as your company's public web-server as the built in BarracudaDrive web server firewall prevents external access to your LAN from anonymous users.

Easy VPN Replacement

FreeCap together with the HTTPS tunnel proxy provides a convenient and easy VPN replacement. Simply start FreeCap, drag and drop your favorite Internet application into FreeCap, and start your Internet application from within FreeCap. Your Internet application will then appear as if it is part of the LAN the BarracudaDrive server is on. This is exactly the same feature as provided by VPN.

The above image shows FreeCap and the tunnel running on a PC. The PC is connected to the BarracudaDrive server via the Internet. Applications such as Outlook are dropped into SocksCap and when started from within SocksCap, the application will behave as if it were part of the company LAN.