For our lab remote applications always were/are/will handy to manage our connection, I know there are many ways to manage your remote devices but some of them are complex and rest do not work well with all operating systems, once my professor said "Don't reinvent the wheel if it is already invented, just use what is available that fits your requirements and save time", well this debate could go long and I don't want to go into this discussion.
Articles by "serial"