High level design involving a network of robots and a server

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I'm having some trouble trying to come up with a design for a network of robots, and a server. I'm trying to have a set up such that:

• I have a central command center (like a server), where I can monitor and control these robots
• I can use the server to give commands to each robot to do different things
• Have robots send back responses to commands, back to the server

For example, say I have two robots running Ubuntu, and I want to monitor and control them through a web server. Say the server is running Tomcat, and has a public IP, so it can be assessed from anywhere. For security reasons, let's say I'll have to log in with a valid username and password to assess my robots. In this case, I would code up perhaps a .jsp file and serve that, or write some sort of webapp, to have a user interface to interact with the robots. To monitor the robots could mean like, I could select robot 1, and view what the camera mounted on robot 1 is currently capturing (say its running mjpeg_server). It could also mean that, the robot is constantly sending information back to the server about its status, such as whether it is online or offline, its current speed, its battery levels, etc, and the server is displaying the information through the user interface. For control, it could mean that I can toggle between exploration mode, and remote control. In remote control mode, I'd have buttons that I can press to move the robot.

I'm looking to build something like this, but don't really have an idea on how to start. Could I just use ROS's publisher/subscriber and service system for such communications? The issue is that my server is running on Windows, and as far as I know, ROS is only experimental on Windows, so would it be better for the server to be independent of ROS? If yes, how would I link the server with the robots? Would I create some kind of TCP connection, where the server sends some commands, and I write a ROS package for the robot to interpret these commands and carry them out?

I'm not looking for one exact answer, but more of a discussion on how to achieve such a set up, and to explore the options I have to do this. Any ideas, opinions, advice, warnings and reading resources would be appreciated!