Remote Server Support Tips

Remote Server Reboot and Reconnect Support

Does your remote server support software cause the remotely administered system to automatically reconnect to the administration console when they come back online after a reboot? If not, then, at best, your administration console will have to retry the remote server periodically to reconnect the administrative session or, at worst, will require a human on the other end to manually restart the support process.

NetworkStreamin's AccessDesk and SupportDesk products both have the feature that remotely systems will reconnect to the administrative console after rebooting, with no human help on the other end, greatly reducing the time required for remote software installations and updates. If you do lots of remote software installation or configuration that requires system reboots, it is worth considering a switch from whatever you're currently using to NetworkStreaming's products, or other products such as those from WebEx which also allow for unattended remote systems to be effectively administered.

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Late Night Emergency IT—in Bunny Slippers

Tired of the occasional 2 am, bunny slipper-clad run to the office to fix a mission critical server that's gone haywire?

For software glitches requiring software administration, there is very good remote server support in the best remote administrative software such as LiveSupport or SupportDesk Pro. Furthermore, some such solutions allow you to remotely administer several machines at a time, thus aiding you even in situations where there's a complex glitch involving multiple servers. SupportDesk Pro even allows you to reboot remote machines and have them automatically reconnect to your remote administration console when they come back online.

For hardware glitches, you're going to have to work a bit harder to prevent having to haul yourself down to the office by having redundancy built into your servers, so that if a hard drive or even entire system goes down there'll be a backup that you can throw up temporarily until you can replace the broken part. In this case, you should be able to reconfigure you server or reroute communication to the backup using this same remote administration software without having to leave the house.

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The Best Remote Access Platforms

Trying to decide on good remote access platforms on which to put your mission critical data? These days, the various UNIX systems, Linux, and Windows all provide pretty reliable servers with good uptimes and with very good security, database, and SOA capabilities, so there is no clear best platform on which to put your data that will be shared remotely.

As with most IT decisions, the best solution really depends on your specific IT situation. For instance, if security is of utmost importance to you then either SELinux or OpenBSD are good solutions.

If you're going to be dealing with huge server loads then FreeBSD and Solaris are good choices, though this will also depend heavily on which database you will be using to store your data.

If administrative remote server support is critical, including the ability to administer multiple remote servers as once, it may be the case that Windows-specific solutions such as Inquiero, SupportDesk Pro, and LiveSupport offer enough special remote administrative features that hosting your data on that platform will be easier to manage and support than on the others.

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