This newsletter frequently discusses mobile network and device management. But what about the other way around: Managing and troubleshooting wired systems from a mobile device?

To date, the big management system makers - BMC, CA, Cisco, HP, IBM/Tivoli, Microsoft - have enabled alerts of system conditions to be sent, usually by page, to network engineering staff carrying handheld communications devices.

“But this just means you have to go find a PC [to fix anything],” says Tony Rizzo, research director, mobile technologies at The 451 Group consulting firm. “They don’t actually allow you to do anything from the handheld.”

Adds Larry Burton, senior network analyst in the network management group at Enterprise Management Associates: “The big guys are focused on enhancing the traditional PC-based network management platform; mobility is an afterthought.”

So to accelerate troubleshooting, at least a couple 24/7 companies have opted to use mobile network management tools from Idokorro, a company (soon to be renamed “Rove”) that makes client software for RIM BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian and Palm platforms. The software emulates the menu items and field names of Microsoft Active Directory, Windows and Unix servers and databases, and routers and switches. The idea is to enable remote network operations staff to take some corrective action directly from a handheld using wireless communications.

Mark Kolodzej, VP of IT and head of infrastructure services at New York-based global financial services company ING Group, uses the company’s Mobile Admin product to enable on-call network operations personnel with BlackBerries to remotely manage Microsoft Active Directory and Exchange servers. He says the tool “hastens troubleshooting and makes life more flexible for on-call staff.”

He recounts, for example, an employee on his boat restarting a print spooler service that had gone into “hang” mode. Another ING staffer in a movie theatre unlocked an account for a user who unknowingly had the CAPS LOCK function turned on and had run out of bad password attempts.

Johnson Smith Company, which sells novelties and collectibles through several catalogs, uses a number of Idokorro’s products, including Mobile SSH (Secure Shell) to Telnet from BlackBerries into Cisco equipment. “Plus, I can get to the mainframe,” says Frank Roe, director of IT.

Joanie Wexler is an independent networking technology writer/editor in Silicon Valley.