Remote Administration

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Systems administrators constantly face the challenge of having to run all over the building to administer servers. Obviously, an administrator who is responsible for physically remote servers faces difficulties in performing administrative tasks because of the need to have physical access to servers.

Although many remote control solutions give users a complete remote console on their local machines, the products in this Buyer's Guide provide remote support specifically for administrative and support tasks. These products are designed to give remote administrators a granular level of control over user machines, servers, and network resources. The listed products don't serve as replacements for remote control software; in many cases, you can use them with remote control software.

The listings in this Buyer's Guide range from products that use proprietary techniques and applications for remote support, to products that use standard APIs and protocols, such as Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) and WMI.

For complete coverage of remote control software that lets administrators use a remote console on their servers, see Larry Seltzer, "Remote Control Administration for Windows NT Server 4.0," page 115 .