The time has come to finish up this discussion of the new Remote Administration Server (RAS) in version 4.0 of Symlabs LDAP Proxy and Symlabs Virtual Directory Server by describing how it actually brings a lot of benefit to a production environment. This, of course, is what our customers care about more than the technology itself (and far more than a philosophy debate with the MOTCL* (*see last post)).

Refreshing your memory from last time, before RAS (i.e., before version 4.0) each instance of Symlabs LDAP Proxy or Symlabs Virtual Directory Server and its associated instance of DSGUI were tightly coupled, one-to-one. For example, every server running Symlabs LDAP Proxy was also running it's DSGUI interface, and while this provided a nice graphical configuration and management tool, you had to access it through that server, and you could only manage instances running on the same server when you did. As production environments routinely started having lots of instances on lots of servers, our customers started asking for a way to simplify and consolidate their management capabilities.

Now with RAS, the architecture has been re-worked so that there are several options for managing complex environments, allowing customers to create the one that makes it easiest for them. The "core engine" in Symlabs LDAP Proxy or Symlabs Virtual Directory Server no longer needs its tightly-coupled graphical environment for configuration and management (as it was before version 3.0, when MOTCL roamed the earth). Instead, RAS allows an instance of DSGUI running on any machine to configure and manage an instance of the core engine running in any server, using fully secure communication of course. One ring to rule them all.

Using the RAS server is fully optional, so if you want run a local DSGUI in the server along the instance of its core engine, you can still do so ... and start managing multi-server configurations the moment you need to, and not an instant before. The rapid prototyping that DSGUI users are used to has not been lost, in fact you haven't lost the flexibility to manage any instance of Symlabs LDAP Proxy or Symlabs Virtual Directory Server from the command line, if that's what works for you. You have simply gained the flexibility to configure and manage them all easily from one place, or from several places using whatever division of responsibility and toolkit matches your organization needs.

Also, with the introduction of RAS we changed the way in which configurations are stored, so they are now platform independent. If you have several RAS instances running on different types of servers, you can simply copy and move the configurations among the servers with just a mouse click. This should come in very handy, especially in production environments where several instances have to be kept current, such as when fail-over scenarios or server replications are managed. It will also be useful where different environments are maintained for preproduction and production, or where different OS are used, for example initial testing done on a Windows desktop with production running Solaris. Now configurations can easily be created on technician's desktop, verified there, and  moved to a preproduction environment to begin load and performance testing in seconds, all without having to worry about changing environments, desktop sharing, or other cumbersome annoyances.

I can keep on talking about implementation details for hours, but at this point you should get the picture, so the next step is to prove it to yourself. Just download a free evaluation version from http://symlabs.com and check out how useful this new feature is. We are always interested in opinions (including from MOTCL) to help us keep improving the features offered in our products, so after you try it, any feedback you want to send us will be greatly appreciated.

Fernando García Vegas