Remote Windows NT Administration Using Windows CE Handheld Devices

As a systems administrator on call at any time of day, I want to explore ways to manage the environment and handle emergencies remotely. In this paper, I look at a number of options for remote administration using compact devices. While the most obvious form of remote administration is a laptop computer, not every organization has the budget to provide these to their systems administrators. Also, in some situations, even a laptop computer is too large to carry around conveniently. Therefore, I evaluated three devices to determine their usefulness for remote administration. While concentrating on Windows CE devices, I included a Palm Computing handheld for comparison purposes. 1. Overview of MCS environment The computing environment in the Mathematics and Computer Science Division of Argonne National Laboratory consists of nearly a thousand computers, i ncluding supercomputers, servers, workstations, desktop machines, and laptops. Our Windows infrastructure consists of 13 production NT servers, eight Samba servers, eight experimental NT cluster servers, approximately 90 NT/2000 workstations, and 30 or so machines running Win95/98/2000 (mostly laptops). The systems group that manages these machines consists of eight full time administrators, three of whom are at least partially responsible for the Windows environment. As with all other systems administrators, I have plenty to do, and our user expectations are high. This paper will deal with an experiment in remote administration: namely, using Windows CE devices to remotely administer our Windows servers. 2. Why use a handheld? I did this experiment for a couple of reasons. First, it seemed like a great academic exercise. There’s a certain challenge that comes from administering your organization’s web server or Primary Domain Controller via a small handheld computer. However, there’s also the allure of being truly able to administer servers remotely without having to carry around a laptop. The advantage of such a model, should it prove successful, is an ability to carry a pocket-sized device and yet have full remote terminal capabilities. You’d not have to leave other situations for some emergencies, instead using your handheld device to solve the problem over a phone line, Ethernet, or wireless link. The usefulness of this becomes very apparent when you’re at some social event or in a meeting. It was only recently that our division’s budget was large enough to supply the systems administrators with laptop computers. The cost of a Windows CE device is much lower than that of a notebook, and may be more palatable to some organizations.