| DCOM Explained by Rosemary Rock-Evans Digital Press ISBN: 1555582168 Pub Date: 09/01/98

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## Chapter 18
Administration

• Currently Windows NT specifics service • Support given to installation, performance monitoring, problem monitoring, configuration, and some problem resolution • Management Console in future will greatly improve administrator’s interface • Zero Administration Initiative will also help to ease installation

Administration services are, as their name suggests, used by the administrator to install applications and middleware, to configure the applications and middleware itself, to resolve errors, to monitor performance, and to handle faults. DCOM’s administration services are part of Windows NT and accessed from the NT menu. The tools available to the administrator cover far more than those associated specifically with DCOM and include Backup facilities (for saving to local tape drives, for example) and a Disk administration utility (to enable the administrator to view and configure partitions on the hard drive). In this chapter, however, we will be looking at those administration services specific to support of DCOM, and we will (as we have done in the other chapters) be looking at the current offerings and the future plans.

### The Range of Tools

Transaction Server, Windows NT, and MSMQ are currently administered using their own Explorer tools. These tools provide cross-platform administration, but not cross-operating system administration. All the tools, as one would expect, are GUI based and include a point-and-click interface with wizards and help.

Figure 18.1 Administration services

At the moment, the tools are somewhat fragmented. The administrator must go to one set of products to administer one set of software and another set for another type of software. All this is due to change, however, with the introduction of the Microsoft Management Console. In fact, by the time you read this MMC should be released. The Microsoft Management Console is just one of a number of enhancements Microsoft is adding to ease the administrative burden (and incidentally improve scaleability, as ease of administration improves scaleability) with enhancements to be added to Windows NT version 5.0.

The Microsoft Management Console will provide a single central point of access to the tools for administration and the resources on the network. The Console will use the familiar Windows 95 style of interface, or plans are afoot to include a Web-based style of access to the tools and resources.

Through the Console the administrator will be able to access all remote processes and machines—the console thus provides a means of administration from a single point in the network of all other resources on the network.

Resources include printers, drives as well as machines themselves, and the software on them.

Tools for centralized administration will, in the future, be available from both Microsoft themselves and from third-party suppliers. These tools will “snap-in” to the console, providing a customized toolset to undertake the tasks the administrator needs to perform.

The tools currently provided with Windows NT that can be used specifically to support distributed applications include the Performance Monitor, User Manager, Event Viewer, Windows NT Diagnostics, and the Task Manager. SNMP links with other tools either already provided or planned to be provided.

The administrator has a number of very specific tasks to perform. These include installation of the software (applications and middleware), configuring of this software (including the set up of security and Directory information), event and problem monitoring (we looked a little a this in the chapter on security), problem resolution, and performance monitoring. We will now look at how the tools provided with Windows NT, Transaction Server, and MSMQ help in supporting these tasks.

### Installation

Installation is the task of actually installing the software on the target machines including any distribution of the software to its destination. Installation is not a particularly well-supported function at the moment in Windows NT, Transaction Server, or MSMQ.

Installation of Transaction server, for example, is via a scripted setup in the SDK. It is not achieved remotely—each host must be set up separately. On installation of MSMQ, the administrator uses SQL Enterprise Manager to install SQL Server, but uses separate tools to configure the PECs, PSCs, BSCs, queues, and so on. In this case, the installation can be achieved remotely from a Windows NT machine.

But the installation process is not applied in a uniform way across all types of software. All this is due to change in part with the introduction of the Management Console and Zero Administration Initiative.

The Zero Administration Initiative is a set of technologies designed to support centralized administration and control of multiple desktops. It aims to include mobile computers as well as office-based systems. The aim is to remove the guesswork from technical support work, by providing the administrator with a way of controlling what is on the desktop.

The administrator will be able to “lock” the desktop configurations and then automatically install software updates to the operating system and applications. The installation will either be directly controlled by the administrator from a remote centralized console, or the updates may be automatically applied from an automated server.

When a user “signs on” to the server, a conversation between host and client will take place to determine the “state” of the software on the client machine. As a result of the conversation, new DLLs and EXEs will then be installed automatically. The intention is to use existing information on Profiles to aid in the installation process.

Thus, the addition of the Zero Administration Initiative does look as though it will greatly help in the burden of installation, although clearly it can only be applied to desktops and may not cover some of the more complex tasks associated with the installation of middleware.

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