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The smartphone has assimilated an increasing amount of functionality over the years, from cameras and video, to email, calendaring and the increasingly dizzying array of apps for sale across all mobile platforms.  However, more often than not these mobile implementations barely rise above glorified proof of concept demos.

Today I’m looking at two emerging spaces in the app eco-system: advanced mobile IT management tools & mobile virtualization.

IT Management meets Carpal Tunnel

One of the more mature tools out there in the management space is Rove Mobile Inc.’s Rove Mobil Admin app.  The current version (5.1) will connect to Microsoft Active Directory, MS Exchange Server, Nagios, VMware ESX hosts and vCenter via Blackberry, Apple iTouch or iPhone and Windows mobile.

It provides functions for things admins get pinged for when they are in the grocery store, like restarting services, changing a password or doing diagnostic tasks that are reasonably easy to do. Going further than most tools Rove’s app is one of the more comprehensive IT management tools I’ve seen.

Other, less expensive smartphone applications for managing systems remotely include WinAdmin, which uses Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Protocol and is available on Apple iTunes. Network administration iPhone utilities are also available, and software companies have developed apps to manage their own products remotely.

The limits of smartphone systems management

But no matter how many bells and whistles these smartphone apps have, their usefulness is limited by the size of the keys and the screen.

For instance, in my experience, the Rove app is really helpful in a pinch but I never administrated an ailing server or any virtual infrastructure using the application. I prefer to do these tasks on a full-size computer where fat fingers are less of a liability.

There is a lot of hype about how these mobile applications can change the way business is done when they are used as an integral part of the process. But remote management tools on phones are typically viewed by most admins as “cool toys” more than anything else.

Amongst IT professionals the penchant for geeky early adoption runs deep, so of course we are going to use these apps. Sure it’s nice, it’s cute, but the overall impact to business is going to be minimal and while it is useful to have the option on your phone, but any engineer or IT consultant is always going to look for a laptop or a Web browser to access resources barring extreme circumstances

Systems management software that ships with servers, such as HP Systems Insight Manager, IBM Systems Director and Dell OpenManage, allow users to manage those respective boxes remotely with a Web browser.

In fact Administrators have been managing environments remotely long before smartphone apps were invented, back to the days of pagers, and most already manage things through the Web browser on our phones. For the time being Smartphone systems management is barely past the bells and whistles proof of concept phase; marginally useful at best.

Smells like (teen) Citrix

Over a year ago, VMware announced that it was working on its Mobile Virtualization Platform (MVP), and the open source community has said it will put the Xen hypervisor into the ARM platform to virtualize phones. VMware has already provided its mobile hypervisor to partners that are building virtualization-enabled mobile devices, but the company said users won’t see those devices until sometime next year.

Citrix Systems and Open Kernel Labs has released the “Nirvana Phone” reference architecture that goes a step further and essentially turns hypervisor-based smartphones into thin-client connection devices.

The Nirvana Phone, which won’t ship for another year, will consist of a smartphone with video output hardware, drivers, a “microhypervisor” and a Citrix receiver. The phone will connect to a monitor, keyboard and mouse and deliver Citrix virtual desktops from anywhere with Wi-Fi or 3G connectivity.

According to Citrix the connection is secure because the device doesn’t receive actual data – only encrypted video commands. In addition, the phone’s Citrix Receiver is encapsulated in a secure virtual machine running on the microhypervisor for added security.

The bare-metal, microhypervisor in the Citrix Nirvana Phone does not actually deliver the virtual desktops. As with VMware’s MVP, the value of putting a hypervisor on a phone is in securing applications by compartmentalizing them. A phone hypervisor also lets users run multiple operating systems and multiple environments on a single device.

However, here we are again with the parlor tricks, as running more than one OS on a Smartphone offers almost nothing but “gee whiz” in terms of applicable use.

What’s the use of a thin-client smartphone?

One drawback of using a smartphone as a thin client is that when you plug the smartphone into a monitor, keyboard and mouse to deliver a virtual desktop, the device becomes a thin client instead of a mobile phone.

Since the phones for Nirvana Phone don’t actually exist, it is unclear whether or how users will be able to use their calling functions as normal. According to Citrix, users will be able to use the Nirvana Phone whether or not it is hooked up to the display.

This multitasking bottle-neck between voice and data applications on the current generation of smartphones is one of the major contributing factors to why some of these applications are not useful in many real world situations. What good is the ability to act as a thin-client, administration interface or anything else when they make the primary function of the device; to make and receive calls; unusable or at least severely degraded.

Also, consider the tried and true tools used to accomplish most of these tasks now outside the smartphone space; Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), VNC, Apple Remote Desktop  Compared to these tools the smartphone space is barren indeed.

My kingdom for an Innovator (or maybe just an iPad)

So what are we really trying to accomplish with these tools? The idea of using virtualization to break hardware dependency and provide flexibility is noble. Unfortunately, pushing functionality onto the already overloaded and over hyped platform of the smartphone all to often forgoes usability in the implementation.

For now, at least, both advanced systems management tools and virtualization appear to be just outside the reach of todays smartphone devices and industry know how.  What is needed is a more thorough understanding of the platforms limitations and it’s current utilization.  Until then we are going to see old thinking continually shoe-horned into new platforms with the same lackluster results we are rapidly coming to expect as a matter of course.