Five apps that simplify cross-platform administration

by Jack Wallen  

Introduction

You'd be hard pressed to find five tools that can administer any system on any platform. But youcan find tools that bridge the gap and work well on multiple platforms. Here's a look at several tools that can administer, to varying degrees, services and/or systems in outstanding fashion.

Webmin

Webmin is one of the most powerful administration tools out there. It's a Web-based system administration tool for UNIX, but it has also been ported to Windows. With Webmin, you can administer nearly anything -- from Apache to DNS to Samba -- and much more.

Webmin

Of course, Webmin on Windows isn't going to have all the bells and whistles typically found on a UNIX-based system, because not all services that are on a UNIX-based system can be found on a Windows-based system. But you can install Webmin on Windows, and it will help you administer that system as well.

MySQL Workbench

MySQL Workbench is the best graphical tool available to manage a MySQL database. Anything you can do from the MySQL command line, you can do on the Workbench -- only without having to know the commands.

MySQL Workbench

MySQL Workbench is available for both UNIX-based and Windows-based platforms. Its GUI is user friendly and can manage databases on the local machine or even a remote connection

VirtualBox

VirtualBox isn't really an admin tool, but it does allow administrators to do solid sandbox testing before deploying a piece of software or a platform. With this tool, you can load up an OS, tweak it, break it, and fix it.

VirtualBox

VirtualBox also lets you serve up platform images remotely, and you'll find various prebuilt images to load up and test or use. VirtualBox will run on UNIX, Linux, Windows, Mac, and Solaris.

PaperCut

PaperCut is a powerful printer administration tool that controls printing by monitoring printing quotas and charging different departments for printing services. This allows you to keep an eye on who is printing the most and determine how to best control spending for this service.

PaperCut

PaperCut also lets you control wireless printing. The tool is available for Linux, Windows, Novell, and Mac.

TeamViewer

TeamViewer is a powerful remote administration tool that lets you take control of a remote user's machine and administer and resolve issues. It offers all the features you need in a remote administration tool.

TeamViewer

With TeamViewer, you can go from Windows to Linux, from Linux to Windows, from Windows to Mac, from Android to Windows, etc. It doesn't care what platform you're on, so long as you have a network connection and credentials to log into the remote machine. Once you're in, you can administer to your heart's content