Out-of-Band Management

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Opengear Offers a Suite of Centralized Management Solutions

By Steve Anderson Contributing TMCnet Writer

The importance of managing data center systems is difficult to overstate. While there are several alternatives available in terms of hardware for managing the task, Opengear (News - Alert) has many of the necessary solutions well in hand. The best part is, they're available in both hardware and software based solutions, so a certain level of customization and scalability is provided.

Opengear's CMS6100 Central Management System is the primary hardware solution in the mix, offering up both secure monitoring and access to devices behind a layer of protection like VPNs--Virtual Private Networks--or by remote firewall. The CMS6100 can manage as many as 255 different console servers, or even device servers. Configurations can be automatically uploaded, and connecting to those remotely managed devices is just a point and a click away.

For those looking for more of a software-based solution, Opengear also has a VCMS Virtual Appliance that can work with VMware or with Linux KVM. It too provides both secure monitoring and control of device servers and console servers alike, as well as over their managed devices. A basic point and click interface gives the ability to remote access locations that don't have public IP.

For those looking for a software-based solution that fits within any budget, Opengear even offers a set of free management software tools that provide both in-band and out-of-band access capabilities for all their devices. There's the SDT Connector, a free Java client that allows point and click interface control over devices on the network, as well as PortShare, a serial port sharing system that allows for free connecting serial port applications on a Solaris, Windows or Linux computer, or even a virtual machine, to serial devices attached to the remote console or device server. Finally, they've also got an SDT system specifically for the open source Nagios software system, providing, in turn, a single interface to control and access--all securely--local and remote sites alike.

It's clear that Opengear has plenty of alternatives for those looking for central management of devices across a wide variety of different types, and especially for those who want secure solutions for that central management. While there are indeed plenty of competitors in the field, Opengear's sheer variety of solutions gives them a significant edge over all that competition.

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