10 Tips - Remote Administration
10 Tips For Remotely Administering Workstations
1 . Know your network
Many large enterprises put rules in place for
remote locations that do everything from limiting traffic amounts for each site
to restricting what traffic can occur from the remote site to restricting MAC
addresses that can connect on the remote site. Also know the procedure or parameters to get
the permitted traffic changed if possible.
2 . Ensure
OS platform consistency
To effectively administer workstations
remotely without your IT costs spiraling out of control, having a single platform
is an absolute requirement. It is worth the pain of being late in implementing
a platform to maintain your consistency for remote administration and support.
(Between the lines, that means wait on Vista.) If a second platform is
introduced, the landscape changes for the workstation administration team.
Everything has to be done once for each platform. Along these lines, having a
standard workstation hardware inventory also contributes to a more efficient IT
organization.
3 . Know
your hardware
Having critical information available is
imperative to being able to remotely administer the workstation through the
life of a system. Consider the following factors:
Is USB 2.0
available on all systems?
Is there a
DVD or CD drive? Can it write?
What boot
sequence have you configured—and how do you change it?
What kind of
connectivity back to your main back office is available?
Knowing the
answers to these types of questions will make a big difference in many of the
situations you'll need to address in a remote administration role for
workstations.
4 . Line up alternate connectivity options
We all find ourselves using a tool in a
primary fashion and being able to address 95% of our issues through that tool. For Windows OS, that would generally be
Remote Desktop. But in the rare situation where you can't use Remote Desktop to
get to a client system, what do you do? Have alternate tools lined up to
provide you access to your systems, as needed. Here are some examples:
Teamviewer :- With help of this software you can easily
connect remote computer with all commands.
DameWare—Offers push install and remove when
done using Windows credentials over TCP/IP connection.
VNC—Good old trusty remote client, service driven. Maybe
use for alternate connectivity and starting the VNC service as needed.
LogMeIn.com —Great offerings in
Internet-to-client connectivity; works through most proxy configurations.
5 .
Make everything as
centralized and singular as possible
When possible, have every element of your
workstation infrastructure collected in one place and one instance. The last
thing you want to have to worry about is a large number of little file servers
scattered around your enterprise. So for file storage, having remote users use
the central resource is critical. That way, your backups and consistent
security access policies are the same for your remote users as for your central
users. Your IT costs will be lower and you'll ensure that administration and
access are controlled in one manner regardless of location.
A notable
exception may be a large remote site with a number of users who may end up
flooding the remote connection between the sites with consistent traffic. If
you have a remote office that has, say, 40 people in it, a local file server
may be appropriate, with backups occurring over the network, time and traffic
permitting. By contrast, consider the example of a store, where you may have
fewer than 10 users and only a few computers. In this situation, you want to do
everything possible to keep the IT footprint low.
6
. Don't provide lesser support
for remote users
Don't let the remote users suffer. The dynamic
for remote workstations is different from a centrally located user. There may
not be another system to walk over to and use, there may not be someone readily
available to perform a quick task for them, and there may be customers waiting.
Users in locations without a local IT staff are really on there own in a lot of
ways, and you don't want them to feel that way about the technology. Providing
good service from the administration side is important to the success of an IT
organization.
7
.
Memorize command-line tools to save time
For those of you who are dealing with low
bandwidth connections, having your common administrative tasks memorized from a
command line can save everyone's time. For Windows XP systems, consider
memorizing the following commands:
Compmgmt.msc —Computer Management MMC snap-in, a
good hub of all types of information, including the Event Log, Device Manager,
and Services.
Ipconfig —The TCP/IP configuration utility.
Some common parameters include /release, /renew, /flushdns,and /registerdns.
Shutdown.exe—A tool to remotely reboot or shut
down a system. With appropriate permissions, a system can be rebooted remotely
as well.
Net Use—Can be used to map a drive, simply
authenticate, or stop a mapping.
8 . . Identify
client firewalls and configurations
If you have client firewalls in
place, be sure you know what can and can't be done. Determine where and by whom
any tasks can be performed (and how to disable that). A good example would be
trying to get a critical file or update to an application from an auto update
mechanism or some other nonstandard source. While this "one-off" mechanism
may sound simple enough, will all systems be able to access the update as
expected?
9 .
Control scope
This is not
really an administration technique, but for remote workstations, you have to
manage what you agree to do as an administrator. Let's say you have a number of
remote offices for a small number of users whom you provide with standard
equipment. This equipment inventory includes workstations or laptops, a laser
printer shared for all local systems, and network connectivity for everything
available at the central site. Inevitably, one day you get a question along the
lines of, “Can we get this other printer that scans and faxes?” from the remote
site.This is a critical issue because the site is taking the scope out of
what's normal—and the support end will suffer because you, as an administrator,
are responsible for drivers on this new device. You'll also be stepping away from
a consistent computing platform. Having scan and fax capabilities isn't a bad
thing—but the business need to understand that asking for functionality outside
of what's normal costs money.
10 .
Have
Internet distribution mechanisms
For remote locations, consider going directly
to the Internet instead of using the VPN or wide area connection. For instance,
say you need to deploy a large service pack for the client operating system. If
you are looking at a 300MB download for a handful of clients, deployment would
not be possible on most remote connections. Certain client administration tools
can manage distribution of packages over the Internet to help remote locations
and laptop users while away from the central network. For example, when remote
workstations (including laptops) are to receive their management packs through
the Internet, iPass may provide the quickest download.
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