The administration system is a central server that is used to manage many of the properties used by iSeries™ Access for Windows® clients.
A system administrator must use Application Administration to configure an iSeries server before it can act as an administration system. Administration system settings are defined on the iSeries Access for Windows page. If you right-click a system and select Application Administration, you will see the additional choices Local Settings or Central Settings if that system is already defined as an administration system. Typically, a network will have only one iSeries server acting as an administration system. For an example network, see Figure 1. This administration system will be used by iSeries Access for Windows clients as the source of their Central Settings for Application Administration. Although a network can have multiple iSeries servers defined as an administration system, the iSeries Access for Windows clients will only use a single administration system for their central settings.
On the administration system, you may select the Local Settings. These settings allow or deny access to administrable functions. The administration system's Local Settings only apply to the administration system.
A system administrator can work with the access settings of users and groups using Application Administration on a local server, but the administration system provides additional ways to manage users and groups. An administrator can select Central Settings on an administration system to work with advanced settings. These advanced settings control what environments are available to specific users and groups, and a system administrator can also control password, connection, service, language settings, and whether or not you want to automatically determine if new plug-ins are available for installation.