Prerequisites for DirectAccess
DirectAccess has a lot of moving parts, and there are many different ways in which you can set it up. However, not all of these ways are good ideas, so in this section, we are going to discuss some of the big decisions that you will have to make when designing your own DirectAccess environment.
Domain joined
The first big requirement is that the systems involved with DirectAccess need to be domain joined. Your DA server or servers all need to be joined to your domain, and all of the client computers that you want to be DA connected need to be joined to a domain as well. Domain membership is required for authentication purposes, and also because the DirectAccess client settings that need to be applied to the mobile computers come down to these computers via Group Policy. I always like to point out this requirement early in the planning process because it means that users who purchase their own laptops at a retail location are typically not going to be able to...
