When the Apple iPhone was first launched, the cell phone suddenly became cool again. But at first, its business applications were at best shaky.
Since then, however, the iPhone’s popularity with the business crowd has skyrocketed, thanks to new features such as corporate mail.
Now, even systems administrators and webmasters—thanks to even newer third-party applications—are seeing the possibilities. According to website tracking firm Pingdom, there are many new apps that should garner serious attention with IT folks. Some of these new features include:
- Web Tools. Lets you view info about servers such as host name and location and lets you ping servers
- Network Utility. A testing tool that, among other things, lets you perform port scans and see where a server is located
- Jaadu VNC. A very powerful app (and more expensive) that lets you control your computer remotely from your phone
- aSubnet. A niche app that can help network technicians determine how many hosts there are, how many network bits are available, and much more.
Pingdom says the iPhone can be “extremely useful to administrators responsible for keeping servers, networks and websites up and running.” The site calls the phone a virtual “Swiss Army knife” for any IT manager.
Making the prospects of the iPhone even better for IT staff is the fact that Pingdom’s list—which includes 12 apps—only mentions programs available from the iPhone Apps Store. That means there are others available … on the so-called “jailbreak market.”
The ability to monitor and optimize your network can be a great thing for any IT operation. One reason: It allows you to be more mobile. But an even more important reason? Not all problems—especially system slowdowns and outages—occur during work hours.
Bottom line, companies that have the power to remotely and safely manage and monitor these critical applications will have a significant competitive advantage over those that don’t.
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