Pandemic life has certainly increased the popularity of remote work and the need for secure and reliable VPN solutions has become more important than ever. Tailscale’s Zero-config VPN (“remote work VPN” for the purposes of this article) offers several benefits for remote workers and teams.

One of my previous articles addressed one of the ways I personally use Tailscale to bridge a complicated Firewall setup I have in my home office. This article will explore six ways Tailscale’s remote work VPN can benefit you or a remote worker of any kind.

1. Access Private Company Resources

Tailscale allows remote workers to securely access company resources such as databases, file servers, and intranet sites from anywhere in the world. By creating an easy to access (and still secure) network between all of your devices, Tailscale enables you to access company resources as if you were on-site.

2. Collaborate Securely with Remote Teams

From a team standpoint, Tailscale makes it easy to collaborate securely. Creating a Tailscale network for your team allows you to securely share resources such as files and applications without complicated VPN configurations or firewalls.

By way of example, a company might create a secure server of sorts allowing private messaging or email between teams. The server itself may even be remote, such as a Personalized VPS Server, or Cloudways VPS instance. Installing Tailscale on the server and sharing it between private team members would allow easy access for all, without a complicated networking setup.

3. Those Private Devices On Your Desk? Connect Away!

Tailscale can also provide secure remote access to all your IoT (Internet of Things) devices such as cameras, sensors, and other connected devices. By creating a Tailscale network for your devices, you can access them securely from anywhere in the world, without the need for complicated port forwarding or firewall configurations.

4. Access Home Networks From a Coffee Shop – Or A Beach 🙂

Tailscale can be used to access home networks securely from anywhere in the world.

Some have even chosen to install Tailcale on a Subnet Router, creating one entry point to their entire home network. It’s a little complicated, but it does allow access to legacy devices and printers (Does anyone even print anymore after the Pandemic? It’s all PDFs and Scanned Documents here 😄).

5. Increase Your Productivity

With Tailscale’s remote work VPN, remote workers can access company resources and collaborate with team members securely from anywhere in the world. This increases productivity by allowing remote workers to complete tasks efficiently and effectively, without the need to travel to a physical office.
It’s another plug for the post-pandemic world: If they can stay on task, remote workers help get a lot more done a lot more affordably.

6. Improve Your Work-Life Balance

Tailscale’s remote work VPN allows remote workers to access personal resources and devices securely, making it easier to achieve a healthy work-life balance. By accessing personal resources securely, remote workers can work from home or remote locations while still maintaining their personal life.

In my personal environment, I use Tailscale for this very purpose. As a Developer and VPS Manager, I can easily schedule personal time for Volunteer Work and Family – without a long distance commute and those inevitable “I can’t connect” moments 🙂 I’ve even installed a Synology NAS at my home – it’s connected to Tailscale, allows me to backup devices, and I use a simple Docker package to access Firefox remotely.

Conclusion

Tailscale’s remote work VPN offers several benefits for remote workers and teams. By using Tailscale, remote workers can securely access company resources, collaborate with remote teams, access IoT devices and personal resources securely, increase productivity, and improve work-life balance.