It was only a matter of time before the Apple iPhone started to work its way into the systems management arsenal.

Integrien has become one of the first providers of systems management tools to make it possible to interact with its software remotely using the iPhone. The fact that IT administrators can access systems management software via a smart phone is not all that new. But the iPhone support for IP makes it a superior device for this type of task, so it was only a matter of time before it was pressed into systems management service.

As a company, Integrien firmly believes that IT organizations will need an approach to systems management that spans both physical and virtual server environments. The core issue is that as more virtual servers come on line, they start to tax the underlying network and storage infrastructure more. That means IT organizations need tools that can show them what is happening across their virtual and physical server environments.

It also means that the potential for trouble increase with the addition of each virtual server on the network. Everybody likes to say that virtual machines herald a new age of dynamic enterprise computing. What that usually translates into is a more volatile data center environment.

As luck would have it, the odds are more than good that when an issue does come up the local IT administrator is going to be home in bed or at dinner with a special friend. But the folks that are relying on IT to keep their applications running don't necessarily want to wait until the IT administrator can get back to the office to fix their problem.

So when you come right down to it, having a smart phone that can interact with your systems management software is not a luxury. It's an act of self-preservation.