UNCOVERING THE LAYERS
ADMINISTRATORS
NEED A
FRAMEWORK
SO THEY CAN
MANAGE REMOTE
COMPONENTS
FROM A CENTRAL
LOCATION AND
MONITOR
THEIR STATUS.
administrators to critical components
such as network switches, routers,
electricity distribution units and a growing
number of security applications such as
firewalls and encryption tools.
Solutions often mean there is no need
for an on-site visit and if it does prove
necessary, the technician often has the
right spare part or new device in hand and
can resolve the issue speedily. Mean Time
to Repair (MTTR) is reduced considerably.
Business continuity at the
hardware level: automatic
monitoring and troubleshooting
But out-of-band management has
advantages beyond urgent crises. It
64
Issue 02
also makes it possible to identify and
resolve issues automatically even before
they affect local data traffic. Modern
solutions integrate an autoresponder
system to rectify network failures by using
diagnostic and repair aids for problems
that occur frequently.
This means that simple tasks can be
carried out automatically, for example,
identifying a router that cannot be
contacted, including messaging the
administrator via SMS or e-mail, and
rebooting the router. Out-of-band
console servers can be configured
so they power down critical devices
properly if the rack temperature is too
high or the UPS (uninterrupted power
supply) identifies a power outage and
battery performance drops below a
defined threshold.
Because of the increasing complexity
of IT infrastructures due to M2M, cloud
computing and the Internet of Things and
in order to avoid high downtime costs,
the rapid identification and resolution
of issues of connectivity to distributed
infrastructures has become a major task
for companies.
Secure remote access via out-of-band
management to servers, WAN devices,
network devices and power devices
makes it possible to identify and resolve
many problems before they impact
users or systems. Administrators need a
framework so they can manage remote
components from a central location and
monitor their status. It normally pays for
itself through a few hours of downtime
avoided and avoidance of the first
service call. ◊
The virtual hardware administrator
These self-healing measures use
recovery scripts that run without human
intervention. This means monitoring
practically the whole infrastructure,
including the physical environment
such as temperature, moisture, smoke
or vibrations, as well as automated
power management is possible by
connecting sensors.
This automation installs a so-called
virtual hardware administrator at every
distributed site and, in addition to ensuring
stability in everyday operation, it also
minimises the scope for human error and
the attack surface for cybersabotage.
Alan Stewart-Brown, VP Sales EMEA
at Opengear
www.intelligentdatacentres.com