An “Internet Facing Deployment” or “IFD” means that the functionality of the application is exposed externally outside of your local network. The web portal and device web-services are open to access from anywhere on the internet. Because of this external access, securing the application server is important.
At a minimum, the following is required for an IFD:
- An SSL Certificate should be installed on your IIS server to assure secure communication between the handheld devices and PanatrackerGP portal.
- The appropriate network firewall ports must be opened and forwarded to allow outside traffic to access your IIS server, thus enabling the PanatrackerGP portal to be reachable from the general internet. Consult your firewall/router documentation for “port-forwarding”.
The above configurations must be performed by your network or hosting resource prior to the installation of the PanatrackerGP software.
From an operational perspective, there is little difference between an internet-facing deployment and a standard implementation of PanatrackerGP. Once your network configurations have been completed, the Panatrack implementation team will work with you to configure the PanatrackerGP software to configure the portal to operate via SSL.