1 00:00:01,940 --> 00:00:06,060 And so now I want to demonstrate the Remote Access Management console, 2 00:00:06,060 --> 00:00:10,650 and again, as I'd said previously, if you're a direct access administrator, 3 00:00:10,650 --> 00:00:12,130 you'll be familiar with this. 4 00:00:12,130 --> 00:00:16,420 So, to search for that, we'll just type in remote access, 5 00:00:16,420 --> 00:00:20,680 and literally, it's the Remote Access Management console. 6 00:00:20,680 --> 00:00:24,140 And again, this is kind of the same thing, only different. 7 00:00:24,140 --> 00:00:27,020 It's it's basically just a more modern version of the 8 00:00:27,020 --> 00:00:29,340 Routing and Remote Access Management console. 9 00:00:29,340 --> 00:00:33,300 You'll find right off the bat that it's obviously much more attractive, 10 00:00:33,300 --> 00:00:34,180 it's prettier. 11 00:00:34,180 --> 00:00:36,050 If you select the Dashboard node here, 12 00:00:36,050 --> 00:00:40,010 you'll see that there's a graphical representation of system health, 13 00:00:40,010 --> 00:00:41,190 which is really helpful. 14 00:00:41,190 --> 00:00:42,890 And also in this section here, 15 00:00:42,890 --> 00:00:47,620 you'll get an overview of DirectAccess and VPN Client Status. 16 00:00:47,620 --> 00:00:52,140 Obviously, we're only using this for VPN, so this would all be VPN connections. 17 00:00:52,140 --> 00:00:55,710 It will show you the total number of active clients. 18 00:00:55,710 --> 00:01:00,510 This is the total number of concurrent users on the system now. 19 00:01:00,510 --> 00:01:03,540 It also shows you the total cumulative connections, 20 00:01:03,540 --> 00:01:08,400 and it's important to understand that cumulative connections just is a 21 00:01:08,400 --> 00:01:11,990 running count of how many sessions have been made. 22 00:01:11,990 --> 00:01:16,220 So this will run up into perpetuity until the server is 23 00:01:16,220 --> 00:01:19,240 restarted or the Remote Access Service is restarted. 24 00:01:19,240 --> 00:01:23,630 And the same goes for the Total transferred data. 25 00:01:23,630 --> 00:01:27,790 And by the way, Maximum client connections again, that does reset. 26 00:01:27,790 --> 00:01:31,090 That is basically a high watermark for the number of 27 00:01:31,090 --> 00:01:34,340 concurrent sessions seen on the server. 28 00:01:34,340 --> 00:01:36,650 This is really helpful for capacity planning, 29 00:01:36,650 --> 00:01:40,620 if you see that you're getting close to the number of IP 30 00:01:40,620 --> 00:01:42,180 addresses or ports that you've assigned, 31 00:01:42,180 --> 00:01:45,850 you may want to bump those up based on this information here. 32 00:01:45,850 --> 00:01:50,150 And again, critically important, when you restart the service, 33 00:01:50,150 --> 00:01:53,190 the Remote Access Service, or you restart the server, 34 00:01:53,190 --> 00:01:55,860 these numbers will reset back to 0. 35 00:01:55,860 --> 00:01:57,850 Next, we'll go to the Operations Status, 36 00:01:57,850 --> 00:02:02,570 and again, this is more of a detailed view of the individual system health. 37 00:02:02,570 --> 00:02:04,220 So if there's a problem with the service, 38 00:02:04,220 --> 00:02:06,530 there would be an error or a warning here, 39 00:02:06,530 --> 00:02:09,510 and there would be some verbose information as well. 40 00:02:09,510 --> 00:02:12,450 I like this because if we go to the Remote Client Status, 41 00:02:12,450 --> 00:02:15,110 I do get the same information that I got from the Routing 42 00:02:15,110 --> 00:02:18,680 and Remote Access Management console, but there's much more here, 43 00:02:18,680 --> 00:02:19,340 as you can see. 44 00:02:19,340 --> 00:02:21,670 Right off the bat, if I highlight a connection, 45 00:02:21,670 --> 00:02:24,610 you'll see that there are access details here, 46 00:02:24,610 --> 00:02:26,770 so we didn't see that in the older console, 47 00:02:26,770 --> 00:02:29,250 and it also if you double‑click on a connection, 48 00:02:29,250 --> 00:02:32,650 it will again give you plenty of detailed information, 49 00:02:32,650 --> 00:02:37,150 things like the ISP address, duration, activity, 50 00:02:37,150 --> 00:02:40,300 transfer rate, IP addresses, and so forth. 51 00:02:40,300 --> 00:02:42,200 There's lots of great information here. 52 00:02:42,200 --> 00:02:45,940 Now, much like the Routing and Remote Access Management console, 53 00:02:45,940 --> 00:02:48,700 this is once again customizable. 54 00:02:48,700 --> 00:02:53,830 So what you see here is useful, but there's much more data that we could surface. 55 00:02:53,830 --> 00:02:57,530 So if you right‑click on one of the column headings, 56 00:02:57,530 --> 00:03:01,570 you'll see that it brings up a menu with additional information. 57 00:03:01,570 --> 00:03:05,740 So, one of the things you'll notice is that the Host Name is never populated. 58 00:03:05,740 --> 00:03:09,340 So the first thing I'll do is I'll uncheck that so that I can, 59 00:03:09,340 --> 00:03:09,970 you know, 60 00:03:09,970 --> 00:03:12,090 reclaim some of that real estate and use it for 61 00:03:12,090 --> 00:03:14,180 something more useful and meaningful. 62 00:03:14,180 --> 00:03:16,760 So I'm going to right‑click here again, and some of the things that I 63 00:03:16,760 --> 00:03:21,180 like to see are, again, my client IPv4 or IPv6 address. 64 00:03:21,180 --> 00:03:23,490 This is really helpful if you're trying to do event log 65 00:03:23,490 --> 00:03:26,850 correlation. You'll know that this connection is using these IP 66 00:03:26,850 --> 00:03:30,870 addresses. Total Bytes In, Total Bytes Out might be helpful just to 67 00:03:30,870 --> 00:03:34,430 see who's using the most the most data. 68 00:03:34,430 --> 00:03:37,160 And, of course, that you can sort by columns and so we can, 69 00:03:37,160 --> 00:03:41,810 you know, surface who's transferring the most data here quite easily. 70 00:03:41,810 --> 00:03:47,010 Connection Start Time might be another helpful one, and also, I think 71 00:03:47,010 --> 00:03:49,890 Authentication Method is good, and of course, you'll see that you'll 72 00:03:49,890 --> 00:03:52,920 quickly start to run out of real estate, so you'll have to really choose 73 00:03:52,920 --> 00:03:55,140 carefully on the columns that you want. 74 00:03:55,140 --> 00:03:58,560 Activity Status and Rate might be good to see as well, and 75 00:03:58,560 --> 00:04:01,170 let me clear a few of these other ones just so that we can 76 00:04:01,170 --> 00:04:02,670 get a good look at those. 77 00:04:02,670 --> 00:04:07,390 So if you look at those, activity means these connections are active, 78 00:04:07,390 --> 00:04:11,140 none of them are idle, and then, of course, the Transfer Rate. This is 79 00:04:11,140 --> 00:04:14,070 the current transfer rate at this particular sampling, 80 00:04:14,070 --> 00:04:17,910 it's not a steady state, so this number will fluctuate. 81 00:04:17,910 --> 00:04:22,000 And of course, you can refresh the console at any time, and you'll see 82 00:04:22,000 --> 00:04:25,190 that there's a Configure Refresh Interval here as well. 83 00:04:25,190 --> 00:04:28,110 So if you want the console to update more rapidly, 84 00:04:28,110 --> 00:04:30,840 you can certainly do that as well. 85 00:04:30,840 --> 00:04:31,300 Now, 86 00:04:31,300 --> 00:04:35,550 the one drawback that the Remote Access Management console has 87 00:04:35,550 --> 00:04:40,340 is that it only works really for one server. 88 00:04:40,340 --> 00:04:42,730 So if I wanted to configure additional servers, 89 00:04:42,730 --> 00:04:46,870 I would have to go back to the Configuration node here and then choose Manage 90 00:04:46,870 --> 00:04:52,740 a Remote Server, and then enter in the other server name, 91 00:04:52,740 --> 00:04:57,540 click OK, and then I could look at the statistics for this 92 00:04:57,540 --> 00:05:00,180 particular server, so now I'm on another server. 93 00:05:00,180 --> 00:05:03,840 So if you have multiple servers, this is somewhat limiting. 94 00:05:03,840 --> 00:05:08,520 If we go back to the Routing and Remote Access Management console, here, 95 00:05:08,520 --> 00:05:11,180 it actually works with multiple servers a little easier 96 00:05:11,180 --> 00:05:13,640 because I can right‑click on the server here, 97 00:05:13,640 --> 00:05:19,740 choose Add Server, and then add my second server. 98 00:05:19,740 --> 00:05:23,130 And then I can view statistical data here, or even 99 00:05:23,130 --> 00:05:25,740 make configuration changes as well. 100 00:05:25,740 --> 00:05:29,440 This is really helpful, again, if you have multiple VPN servers in your 101 00:05:29,440 --> 00:05:38,000 environment. Also if you're using Server Core, this is a good way to manage and monitor those systems as well.