Windows Phone Thoughts: Expand Beyond's Mobile Suite for Microsoft 2.3 reviewed

Local Processes Browser


Figure 34: Process browser.

From the processes browser, you can click on a process to get further information on the process or to kill that process. Some of the additional detail available can be see in Figure 35.


Figure 35: Process detail.

Local Services Browser


Figure 36: Services browser.

From the services browser, you can select the service of interest and then stop or start it, or change the startup method for the service (automatic, manual or disabled).

Shell Command Center
This is identical to the shell command center feature offered by PocketDBA.

Performance Monitoring


Figure 37: Browsing the performance categories.

To utilise the performance monitoring feature, you can to start by selecting the performance category required. Once you've done that, the criteria for that category will be displayed. Once you've selected the criteria, the monitoring process will start and you can view a graph that tracks the results, as shown in Figure 38.


Figure 38: Page faults being monitored.

Unlike PerfMon on a Windows PC, only one criteria can be monitored at a time, and the system will only keep samples for up to a minute, after which you just see the last minute's worth. Those limitations aside, this is a fantastic way of being able to drill down into specific areas of interest. On a Pocket PC, it can be a bit awkward paging through the options available, so it might be useful in a future version to be able to bookmark favourite categories & criteria to make it easier to pick the monitors you tend to favour more than others.

PocketAdmin Console
Although both PocketDBA & PocketAdmin provide a command line interface to the servers that are managed by the suite, the design of the user interface is limited to enter a command, submit it, see the results. For a typical administrator who is trying to troubleshoot a problem, the flow is more likely to be "try a command, try a different command, look at the output, try a third command", i.e. the ability to be able to retain the output from previous commands would be useful.

With that in mind, Expand Beyond also provide the PocketAdmin Console. This is a very simple to use application that establishes an SSH connection between your Pocket PC and the system you are trying to connect to. A useful feature of the console is the ability to create macros, thus avoiding the need to manually enter useful & often used commands like "netstat -a".

Another important use of this application is the ability, once you've set up the secure connection to the SSH server, to then telnet on to other systems that might not be actively managed from the software. Such systems might include routers & firewalls.

Gotchas
Some problems were experienced with a few of the features during the writing of this review, specifically around adding users to domain groups, looking at domain printers and moving onto the next page of a set of results. These problems may be down to the test environment I was using, or it may be that I've found some bugs in the product. Expand Beyond's Technical Support team are currently trying to reproduce my reports in order to determine the cause(s).

Beyond that, the only other quibble I've got is that, as pointed out during the review, some of the tables could do with a slightly better layout in order to fit more information onto the Pocket PC display.

Where To Buy
The product can be bought directly from Expand Beyond. Prices for the Mobile Suite start at $2,500 for managing between one and 10 objects, and go up to $50,000 for an Enterprise license. An object is a CPU under PocketDBA, a workstation or server under PocketAdmin for Windows and any host you wish to connect to under PocketAdmin Console.

Please contact their [email="sales@xb.com"]Sales department[/email] for pricing for licences to suit your needs. A 30 day trial can be requested.

Specifications
The XBanywhere server can be installed on Windows 2003, Windows 2000 (service pack 2 or later), Windows NT 4 (service pack 6a), Sun Solaris (version 8 and 9) or Red Hat Linux (version 7.3 and 8.0). An X virtual frame buffer (Xvfb) is required for Solaris and Linux use.

SSH from OpenSSH or SSH.com is required for command-line access to Windows systems, and optionally for Solaris or Linux systems (telnet is supported as an alternative).

Approximately 100MB if free disc space is required to install XBanywhere. A minimum of 256MB of free RAM is recommended. For Windows & Linux, a Pentium II process or better is recommended. For Sun Solaris, a 250MHz or better SPARC processor is recommended.

The Gateway software can be installed on Windows 2000 (Service Pack 2 or later) or Windows XP Professional. It is not currently supported on Windows Server 2003. The OS installation will also require IIS, .NET Framework v1.1 and MDAC v2.7. If you have an Exchange infrastructure you want to manage, the Exchange Administration software must also be installed on the Gateway system.

The PocketAdmin Console software requires an ARM or XScale processor device. The documentation states that it is compatible with Pocket PC 2002 and 2000 (subject to the processor restriction). I can't see any reason why it wouldn't work with Pocket PC 2003, but I didn't have such a device to test it on. A list of tested devices is available at http://www.xb.com/faqs.html, along with details of wireless modems that have been tested.

Conclusions
The product is relatively straightforward to install, requiring two servers in a typical environment. That's all - there aren't any agents to install onto the managed systems, which is of great benefit as it minimises the impact on the deployment of the product and makes it easier to maintain as new releases come out. That everything can then be managed from a Web browser is just fantastic.

The documentation is clear and contains lots of practical examples so that it is clear how the product can be used.

The Mobile Suite is an extremely powerful product that is very easy to use. It makes good use of technology to deliver a low bandwidth yet sophisticated user interface. I have used both version 2.2 and 2.3, and I am impressed with the way Expand Beyond continue to develop and enhance the product. They are working on a new release for later on in 2004 and, from the replies they've sent me, are clearly open to suggestions as to what features would be useful to see in the product.