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Management Additions
Reporting and logging capabilities in NT 4.0 are fairly weak. Modem events can be written to a test file, and with Microsoft's Network Monitor (NetMon), a protocol analyzer packaged with Systems Management Server (SMS), you can capture PPP connections. But to obtain utilization statistics, real-time displays and advanced user, port and session management, you need third-party management packages like Virtual Motion's Remote Access Manager (RAM) and NTP Software's RAS Manager for Windows NT. Designed to work with RAS regardle ss of the underlying hardware, they scan the event log, poll RAS and work with NT Domains and the event log to more effectively manage users and remote access.

With these products, you can set up time-of-day and session limit restrictions, limit access to NT servers from a single interface and apply those changes globally to individual users or groups of users. This functionality provides a single point of management with access to virtually all of the functions needed for day-to-day management.

Reporting and logging is also enhanced by management packages, as utilization statistics are gathered and, in the case of RAS Manager, exported to a comma delimited file or dBase file. This capability lets you write custom reports for billing and management.

A word of caution: Windows NT hot fixes and service packs to RAS can break the delicate dependency chain of NT RAS and third-party applications. On our servers, we installed Service Pack 3, RRAS (Routing and RAS) update and a RAS hot fix. The hot fix gav e us trouble when both Virtual Motion's RAM and NTP's RAS Manager for NT were installed. RAScom prompted us to overwrite the RASTAPI.DLL from the RRAS update with the DLL (Dynamic Link Library) from the hot fix. We applied the same fix to the NT server running NTP's RAS Manager.