On-Call Options

[andygates]

The mood at work is a'changin - we have many bike riders among the on-call IT crew and the on-call pack is a huge, gruesome albatross (big, heavy old laptop, a sack of magic string, phone and more magic string, pager, docs, it's the weight of a medicine ball with none of the joy.  We're after a change.

Our on-call needs are simple and generic: get called, get online, and VPN onto the work network, then use Remote Desktop to piggyback around from server to server.  3G or wifi is needed to get online without suckage.  We need to be able to run the Cisco VPN client, which is available for Windows / Mac / Linux.  Some of the options we're thinking about:

1. A Windows smartphone.  Not used one myself, but IIRC there are flisters who've been using things like the Nokia Communicator and its descendents for ever.  Can they run full-fat Windows apps these days? 
2. An Asus EEE or similar little netbook.  3G is the issue here, I think. 
3. Can you bludgeon the Cisco VPN client into working on an iPhone?  I know there's Remote Desktops for it... The boss is a sucker for shiny objects (and so am I).

Input welcome!

Comments

[calum]

Im waiting for the Sony-Ericsson Xperia X1. If its as good as it looks, I'll be getting that instead of an iPhone.

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

(1) There are people running VPN clients on Windows Mobile phones with some success. I've never tried running Remote Desktop on them - I'd expect it to be a bit painful. Oh, and those devices do not run desktop-Windows apps at all.

(2) There are a rash of 3g netbooks - there's an Advent that's already in the shops, rumours of a 3G EEE released in early October, and I think also a 3G Acer One on its way.

(3) With no keyboard ?

[arabis.livejournal.com]

While it's great to be able to check email/wikipedia etc, I'd hate to use my smartphone (it's a work vodafone 1605 or similar - I wouldn't buy one for myself!) for any serious server administration.

Toshiba do a superlight Portege R500 laptop which you can stick a 3g sim card in. But, I'm not sure it'd be ideal for slinging in a bike panier.

I reckon the Asus EEE would be a lot more rugged and as long as they have USB ports, I'm pretty sure you can get USB solutions for the connectivity like this Vodafone one

Actually, Toshiba are apparently bringing out a Netbook range to compete with Asus. I don't really know anything about those models, but in general I do rate Toshiba laptops for reliability.