Rove Takes Data Center Management Mobile

by Andrew Garcia

Mobile Admin Basics includes a variety of standard Windows management tools, shown here via the Web interface and the iPhone application (bottom left).

Mobile Admin Administrators can build templates of manageable devices for other IT staffers. Whereas previously Mobile Admin organized administration by server, 5.1 introduces organization by Service – allowing IT to see all manageable application resources in a single view. Administrators can also set up top level short cuts to machines or services most commonly accessed.

Remote Users log into the Rove Mobile Admin server, on which they must have local admin rights. Upon successful login, Mobile Admin automatically consumes an available user license which is assigned to the user’s account.

The first user logged into Mobile Administrator becomes the system administrator by default. This user can define the default views and services accessible by other users of the system. These permissions can also be edited on a per-user basis.

It’s quite simple to add users to Windows Active Directory, reset passwords or perform Exchange Tasks via Mobile Admin.

Administrators can access the Windows command line or PowerShell via Mobile Admin.

I could view the services on a Windows system, stopping or restarting them as needed.

Mobile Admin let me investigate Windows problems via the Event Viewer.

Mobile Admin presents all the web sites in an IIS instance, along with controls to change security permissions and index rules.

In addition to adding users to Exchange, I could edit message delivery defaults and view a user’s storage usage.

Whereas other devices require HTTPS connectivity or a VPN for a Mobile Admin device to contact the management server, BlackBerry devices activated to a BlackBerry Enterprise Server can utilize the MDS channel to connect and secure maangement traffic.

I could manage my BES 5.0 enviromment with Mobile Admin, adding new users, configuring activation passwords, or viewing BES configuration and licensing information.

I could use MObile Admin to restart the BES dispatch service. Mobile Admin provides a warning that a restart with kill the Mobile Admin session for BlackBerry users—even if the user is not on a BlackBerry.

My VMWare vSphere infrastructure was controllable through Mobile Admin. I could drill down into my clusters, view stats on individual VMs, and start and stop virtual clients. There are no VMotion tools, however.

Mobile Admin let me edit VMs configuration in just a few ways. Although I could adjust a virtual client’s CPU and RAM settings, Mobile Admin was kind of dumb about it—if the server was still running, it would send the command anyway, which would simply be ignored by vSphere.