The security default is no remote access. In a military organization, you might have more control over a single administrative domain, including clients and servers. You should get authentication, confidentiality, performance, and transparence. An outside facing portal has fundamental security advantages, not the least of which is they are drivers for re-thinking the typical hash of individual internal stovepiped solutions. Briefly, a piece of security code is dynamically downloaded into the browser and this acts as an intelligent secure router for all communications between the browser and an internal site.
Concurrent connections are possible between the browser and unrelated sites.
Nothing deep, but I felt like replying. The security default is no remote access.