Connecting Remote Site

[JBakerii@xxxxxxx]

A friend of mine has a client that has two sites, the main office and the 
plant, 50+ miles apart.  Their AS/400 is located at the plant, and they 
currently connect the office via a 56K leased line and a remote controller 
with 2-3 PC's with emulation cards.  The main office has a direct Internet 
connection, but the plant only has dial up access.  There is a network at 
each location, and all/most of the devices at the plant are connecting over 
Ethernet using Client Access.  They want to get rid of the 56K leased line, 
and set up a fast connection between the two sites so they can connect all of 
the PC's at the office to the AS/400 via Ethernet.  They also would like to 
get a fast connection to the Internet for the people at the plant.  My friend 
knows little or nothing about AS/400's so he has asked me to help him.  From 
what I know, we will probably propose one of two solutions to them.  

The first solution would be to connect the two sites with a T1 or similar 
connection, and combine the two networks into one with a PDC at the plant and 
a BDC at the main office.  Then it would be simple to connect PC's at either 
location to the AS/400 via Ethernet.  The PC's at the plant could also use 
the direct Internet connection that they have at the office.  The second 
solution would be to install a direct Internet connection at the plant and 
connect the two sites via the Internet.  Of the two solutions, I currently 
favor the first one.  I think that there would be less security issues to 
worry about, and also easier to connect the two sites.  I have read the posts 
in the past about connecting remotely over the Internet, but I think that 
this would be less secure and harder to manage.

I was wondering if anyone on the list had done something like this and if 
there are any little gotchas we should watch out for.  There might even be a 
third or fourth solution that we have not thought of.  So, how about it.  
Does anyone have any thoughts or comments on what would be the best way to 
accomplish this?

John Baker
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