It's especially nice if you can query the status of a suite, start it, stop it, or adjust it, over the phone. Even from home, then, you'd be able to get those machines cracking. Suite is executable on a variety of system configurations to support compatibility testing. Automated suites should be designed with a minimum of assumptions about the configuration of the test machine. Since compatibility testing is so important, try to paramaterize and centralize all configuration details, so that you can make the suite run on a variety of test machines.
Suite architecture is modular for maximum flexibility.
This is as true for testware as it is for software. You will reuse your testware. You will maintain and enhance it. So, build it such that you can replace or improve one part of it, say the test reporting mechanism, without having to rewrite every test. Just as software requires careful thought and design, so you will discover that testware requires the same.