Server Management:
What is a server? Is this a strange question? Look at the different types of servers a typical IT professional has to manage on a daily basis: File servers, print servers, database servers, email servers, and application servers just to name some of them. Let's face it: a server is not just a server. Different server managing types sometimes remind me of different human personalities. Do you treat every person you know in exactly the same way, even if some of them are shy and restrained while others are demanding or even aggressive?
I guess not. Human beings with different personalities are nothing unusual. Your different responses to their different behaviors are just natural. Adapting successfully to changing surroundings is the secret of human civilization. Can our computing environment change in the same way? The Microsoft Dynamic Systems Initiative is a first step to map this notion to enterprise IT environments.
In this article I will highlight some of the most common challenges IT professionals encounter when they try to tightly control server management behavior of different types of Windows Servers in the dynamic enterprise. At the beginning I will look at the species of application servers--specifically terminal servers. I will describe different terminal server issues in enterprise environments and their potential solutions. Later I will move forward to other server types and introduce the flexible responses to their different behaviors. Then I will end up at the client side and adapt the lessons learned from the servers. Finally, we'll look at how management tools, such as the AppSense Management Suite, play a significant role to convert challenges to solutions.
Let's take an initial look at terminal servers. They bring back the old idea of a host computer providing access to interactive applications for multiple users. This is accomplished by redirecting the applications' input and output operations to a number of remote computers--which you may call terminals. The multi-user function of a terminal server management should not be confused with the function that allows multiple users to be connected to a server through the network in a more general sense.
Multiuser service server management tools without interactive logon to the server's user interface is frequently used for file, print, database, or email services. In contrast, terminal services allow multiple interactive user sessions in parallel. Each of these sessions provides a complete virtual user environment including a desktop. Bundling multiple terminal servers into a single logical unit is referred to as a server farm and is usually done for scalability reasons. A server farm then requires the usage of network load balancing mechanisms to hide the number and identities of individual server platforms, whilst still providing interactive access to a server desktop.
Theoretically, the server management difference between interactive and non-interactive login does not seem to be of great importance--until you decide to deploy terminal servers in the enterprise. This is the moment when a server administrator allows his non-administrator users to login interactively to his beloved server's desktop. For many IT professionals this is a horror scenario. Even worse, when server administrators have to install many end-user applications on terminal servers, things usually start to run out of control.
Let's face it; many server administrators have no idea about end-user's applications and how to install them on terminal servers. And even if they do, they never completely understand the interaction between those applications and the impact this has on their server. On the other hand, client administrators look at terminal servers and think that they are some kind of "multi-client device" with an inappropriate server branding. Many client administrators should not be touching an enterprise server if all they know about are end-user's applications. It's like asking the butcher to bake you some bread.
After figuring out who is responsible for this server beast, there are more problems administrators encounter when they have to manage terminal servers. The most common issues include locking down the server desktop, preventing the users from launching "wrong" applications and controlling the server hardware resources, such as CPU and memory. A natural administrator reflex is to try to solve these problems with the standard tool set that is delivered with the Windows Server operating system, including group policies, login scripts and command-line tools.
