Feature: For today's IT professional, the iPad is an addition, not a replacement
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If someone is having a enigma, I can SSH into their Mac or remote into their Windows machine while they’re having the problem in front of me. Being able to troubleshoot the problem as it’s happening instead of frustrating to duplicate it hours or days... The iPad may not have things like SD card slots, but I've had devices with those things. I log into our internal IT arrival page and log into Nagios and Cacti, and via some custom views, make sure that things are running OK. All of this is done via HTML. Other than cameras, I find the implementations of SD cards to be so scant that not having them hasn’t been an actual problem for me. Besides, I have a good wireless network. The less time I spend acquiring data, the more conditions I have for other things. Within a few minutes, I can check on servers across the country, not only for up/down settings, but to see if critical services are edging from “OK” to “not OK. ” Nothing more than Safari needed. While the apps within reach on the platform are indeed important, it is the platform itself that makes all the difference. When I first started in this business, monitoring networks meant absolutely expensive platform-specific programs, or worse, dedicated hardware that could cost tens of thousands of dollars. The iPad (and apps) in commonplace workflow First, there’s the obligatory “While laptop is starting and logging in” checks. Even when I worked in a mostly Windows network, I still ran things from a Mac—the programme just gave me more capability than traditional Wintel. Finally, when I’m doing my “IT by walking around” aspect, the iPad is a better tool than any other I’ve had. So the iPad itself is great, but face it—you need apps too.
Source: Ars Technica