Get best of the week

Work on a remote site: how to configure round-the-clock access to an office computer and its files



If earlier the remote work format was just a trend, now it has become a necessity. And many, due to the forced self-isolation mode, faced with the problem of access to files and applications stored on the office computer. In this article I’ll talk about our solution - Parallels Access, which allows you to connect to a PC from almost any device, wherever it is.

The need for work on a remote site, caused by a pandemic, has forced millions of people around the world to use new technologies and applications that were previously ignored for various reasons. Skype and Zoom have become the main tools for meetings, the demand for time tracking systems and services for online identity verification has increased. However, many had difficulty connecting to an office computer from home.

The standard and well-known in Russia solution for remote control of computers - TeamViewer - recently very severely limited free sessions in time. Its founders decided to tighten the nuts in terms of personal use in order to increase sales. And not everyone is ready to pay $ 25 per month for the ability to connect to a remote desktop, especially in the current environment.

Therefore, I want to talk about an alternative - our Parallels Access product. And, frankly, from the point of view of functionality and management of computer software from a mobile device, I consider it more convenient than TeamViewer. But first things first.

Parallels Access: what is it and how does it work?


Initially, the Parallels Access application was called Parallels Mobile. It was developed as an add-on to Parallels Desktop virtualization software. But over time, it has become a standalone tool for remote access and now allows you to control your computer from a mobile device (smartphone or tablet), or from any desktop PC.

It does not require any actions with routers, firewalls or port numbers to start it. You just install two components - the application on the mobile device and the client on the computer - enter the name, password and everything starts to work. When a user connects through Parallels Access, everything that was allowed by his PC in the office becomes available in a remote session.

For a web browser, to achieve maximum compatibility, we decided to use the HTML5 mechanism, without broadcasting the video. That is, in fact, the user receives a series of images with a high degree of compression. This has its drawbacks: to play toys or to work with applications in which the response speed is important will not work. But on the other hand, with all other office programs that employees use most often, it is very easy to interact even on slow 3G.

At our place, for example, many colleagues moved to their summer cottages during quarantine. Only mobile Internet is available to them, and outside the city it is, to put it mildly, not very smart. But since the web console requires little traffic, it is comfortable to work even on a narrow channel. Our administrators, who still have server racks in the office, use Parallels Access to manage the development infrastructure - connect to office computers and manage their software from there. And developers often use the application to get the files that lie in our cloud infrastructure on the local network.

Like other remote control solutions, like TeamViewer, Parallels Access can display the desktop of a remote device. For access from a PC, we made a standard interface, the image from the computer is transferred to one in one on the image in the browser. And for mobile devices, they came up with a lot of tricks and modifications to make it convenient for the user to work and manage applications on remote computers using the touch screen.

Firstly, there is a video stream. Technologically, everything happens as follows: the agent that the user puts on the computer takes what is happening on the screen, encodes it in MPEG-4 and transfers it to the device where the data is unpacked. We licensed the CoreAVC codec, which is considered one of the best for video in H.264, and the corresponding encoders and decoders for it, which allowed us to provide a frame rate of about 30 frames per second. This is a fairly comfortable update rate that allows you to work with any application, including graphic editors.

Once we shot advertisements and it had the following plot: the architect went on vacation, bathes in a bath and then a client calls him demanding to urgently make one small change in plan - to put a statue of Caesar in the middle of the courtyard in his palace. The architect immediately opens our application on the phone, finds his project, drags the object to a new location and after a minute continues to rest quietly.

Secondly, we focused on creating mobile experience as much as possible. And I think we’ve done better in this regard than the TeamViewer developers. The PC has its own paradigm of work, the interfaces of computer applications are designed to control the mouse. Getting the cursor into the small button is not difficult, but when a person works on a tablet or smartphone, he usually uses a finger. Poking them in tiny interface elements that have the size of subatomic particles is extremely inconvenient. Therefore, so that the user does not suffer, we do not transfer the one-on-one picture to mobile devices.

When connected via Parallels Access, the screen resolution on the remote computer changes to a smaller one, and accordingly, all objects increase. Plus, we have a special mechanism - SmartTap, which allows you to easily hit even those buttons that are not very large. When a person pokes on the screen, the content around the touch point is recognized and the software determines where you specifically wanted to click.

Gesture management


We have been working for a long time to make the "native" gestures of iOS and Android work with desktop applications. In particular, it is scrolling content up and down, the ability to make a “pinch to zoom” to increase the size of application content on a remote computer, or drag your finger across the screen to select text. Plus, these are the menus that appear for copy paste and other editing.



When a user works on a regular computer, for example, with the Word program, he cannot finger up the contents on the monitor. Therefore, it was technologically difficult to make a control mechanism; most other remote access programs do not.

But we wanted everything to be as native as possible. We converted every gesture into a mouse control mechanism, tried to use everything that was invented for mobile devices. They also added some advanced movements and a special magnifier - a magnifying glass - which allows you to more accurately remotely click on small objects. By launching the application for the first time, you can see a small tutorial that clearly explains all the management features.

Home screen applications


Another big difference between Parallels Access is its own interface for launching remote applications on mobile devices. When connected to a computer, it does not open the desktop, but a list of all the applications that are installed on it. When the user selects one of them, it opens in full screen. In this case, all the sounds that come from the remote PC - streaming playback in iTunes, notification signals - are transmitted to the speakers of the mobile device.

If you prefer mirroring the desktop, as other remote access solutions offer, you can go to the settings and change the mode. As for the payment, we give a 7-day period of full functionality, and then leave 5 minutes a day for free use. For most cases, when a person needs to go in and check the status or copy a file, this is quite enough. I see a lot of people who use Parallels Access this way and they have enough. However, the annual subscription to the application (when buying on our official website) costs no more than two cups of latte in a coffee shop - 649 rubles.

About security


And finally, a few words about the security of user data. We have several levels of protection. The first is two-factor authentication, which requires confirmation from the user when adding devices. The second is 256-bit AES encryption (translation from technical: very reliable). Neither our company nor anyone else can see the data that is being broadcast. Third - in almost all cases, we try to organize a direct connection between devices.

As part of the Parallels Access infrastructure, there is a broker system that allows you to detect a computer and a mobile gadget or other PC that are far from each other. Between them there are various firewalls and routers that make it difficult to establish a connection. We find them, and then establish a direct connection of devices, make sure that it does not go through the servers of our company. In other words, Parallels does not even try to view any information - it is transmitted without an additional intermediate link.

More articles:


All Articles