1. A method of securing access to the administration of a plurality of distinct services residing on one or more service host computers from an administration server computer connected to the one or more service host computers, there being a service manager residing on the administration server computer, the method comprising: providing a selected user identifier and a corresponding private keyword, the user identifier being arranged to identify a user having administrative access to at least one of the distinct services; authenticating the user by comparing the selected user identifier and the corresponding private keyword against a plurality of user identifiers and private keywords stored in a persistent storage area, the comparing performed under control of the service manager; deriving a list of services to which the user associated with the user identifier has administrative access; when a request is made to administer a selected one of the services in the derived list of services, verifying at the service host computer associated with the selected service that the user associated with the selected user identifier is permitted to access the selected service by examining access control data associated with the selected user identifier in the persistent storage area; and transferring one or more management files on the service host computer to the administration server thereby facilitating manipulation of the management files utilizing the service manager.