Best way to use VBP in a secure 3-tier build environment?

[daveg92656]

Hello,
VBP newbie here running VBP 6.0. I searched and did not find much info on this and the networking and other examples did not "go into enough detail"

We run a very secure 3-tier build environment, and I'm looking for the best way to automate the build on all 3 stages (if I can).

My main problem is figuring out the "best way to remote in" to our secure remote servers, and how many "levels" can VBP work into?

Our app is financial so it's very, very secure, which means we cannot allow "file & print sharing" required for the PsExec tool. That leaves TelNet or PLink, I like PLink, but if others have experience one way or another, please let me know.

Currently, we manually use RPC to log onto remote servers, then once there, open StarTeam Version Control to get latest code and Label it. After that, we again RPC to other other servers in the same rack. This area is considered the 2nd tier.

I'm thinking to use PLink using SSH to get into the remote servers (2nd tier), but my question is can you "feed commands to PLink" or what VBP tools can I use once the "tunnel is connected"? Once connected, can I just use all the regular VBP tools? Do I need to install VBP on the 2nd tier server to feed commands to it?

On 2nd tier, I need to Stop Services, Check Out files from StarTeam, then Copy these files to certain folders. I can do all of this through DOS command line or use Visual Build to do it. Is PLink better for calling DOS commands or can it call other VBP commands?

Then after all that (on the 2nd tier), I still need to RPC to the 3rd (production) tier and Open StarTeam, check out files and do more file copies.

Can I do a PLink tunnel to the 2nd tier, then another PLink tunnel to the 3rd tier?

What is the best model/way to accomplish this type of distributed builds in a 3-tier secure environment?

Help Please!!

Thank you so much!! Dave.