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The Evo Client is used by remote customers and internal SB staff alike to access the Evolution servers, and everybody uses the same common installer.

The parameters required to access any given server are different for those inside the network than for those outside, and because the overwhelming majority of users are on the outside - your customers accessing via Remote Relay - that's what the EvoClient.msi installer is optimized for.

Table of Contents

Though many of the default settings also work for internal staff, but suboptimally, this paper shows how to configure Evolution properly to get the most optimal experience for those inside the network.

Remote clients always go through the Remote Relay service, which is essentially an encrypting proxy with compression, relaying connections from the outside world on ports 9901..9903/tcp (and sometimes 443/tcp), proxying them to the Request Broker on port 9500/tcp.

By changing the login settings once to go direct-to-RB, there are a number of benefits:

  1. Bypassing Remote Relay means that a whole level of compression and encryption overhead is avoided, which modestly improves the responsiveness of the Evo client. The local network is typically protected from the outside world, and VPN connections (for those hosting Evolution at a data center) are always encrypted anyway, so there's not really any security benefit to running Remote Relay. And compression is totally wasted on a fast local network.
  2. By connecting directly to the Request Broker, it's no longer necessary to commit your batches (via the yellow sun / stack of pancakes icon), as this is done automatically when a change is posted. For busy SB staff, it's a few less clicks to do just about anything.
    stack-of-pancakes icon
  3. If there's some problem with your Evo server that requires kicking off your customers while SB staff addresses the issue, being able to shut off Remote Relay (to boot customers) won't also kick off inhouse staff.
  4. When internal SB staff is logged in directly to the Request Broker, the Evo MC user listing shows the IP address of their workstation, which might help track down where an errant user is logged in from ("Oh, Ben's working in the conference room"). This information is more difficult to track down if coming in through Remote Relay.

It's a best practice to encourage all internal staff to use direct connections.

Logging in with proper parameters

There are a few settings to change while at the logon box:

Login box settings for the Evo client

This should only need to be done once (or maybe twice, if an auto-update was done) - after you've logged in successfully, it will remember your settings and all you'll need to enter is your password. This is done on a per-user basis.


Checking user connection types

It's a good idea to spot-check occasionally to insure that all SB internal staff is accessing the system directly via the Request Broker and not through Remote Relay. This can be seen in the Evo Management Console by navigating to Monitoring » Active Users and checking the users with an App Type of "RR".

Evo MC showing users

Those recognized as internal staff on an RR connection should be encouraged to change their settings to go direct.

Exception:; users with laptops who use the system both inside and outside the office may well decide to keep just one setting, one that uses Remote Relay, to avoid having to change settings every time they change locations. This is entirely reasonable.

2013/07/05: Updated for Peru
2008/11/26: First published