Over the course of the last 5-10 years, IT organizations from the smallest of the SMB to the largest of the Enterprise have become dependent upon remote access tools to manage their servers and devices.
The problem, however, is that these tools were adopted by different groups within the organization, without a clear strategy (i.e., the Windows team adopted IP KVM and RDP, while the network team bought console servers and adopted SSH).
Over time, the vast majority of IT departments have taken on in-band (i.e., RDP, VNC, SSH) and out-of-band (PDU, KVM, console) tools, as well as the service processors (ILO, DRAC, IPMI), each with their own IP addresses, passwords, usernames and more.
Today, IT managers face the challenge in managing all of these methods of access to their critical infrastructure. They *might* have a spreadsheet with all of the pathways. Others have all of this critical information on a white board, on post its or worse, in the “head” of the administrators.
This presents major issues with operational efficiency and data center security. With regard to efficiency, using a spreadsheet (or worse) means that each time an administrator is notified of an issue, he must first locate the server/device with the issue, copy and paste the IP, password and username for the selected tool just to gain access. If the first tool is ineffectual (RDP when Windows is down), he must do the same for the 2nd tool and if, for instance, the solution is powering down the server, he must do it a 3rd time for the PDU. This is not only a slow, painstaking process, but one that opens the door to human error.
The 2nd major issue with the current state of remote access management is security. When all of the passwords, IPs and usernames to an organization’s critical infrastructure are in a spreadsheet or in someone’s head, you are just begging for trouble. These pathways allow access to the most sensitive data in an organization, but they are not currently being treated that way. To ensure the security of a data center’s servers and devices, a RAM solution that locks down this critical information must be adopted.
With Minicom's AccessIT®, a data center can drastically increase how quickly his users can access and remediate issues on their servers and devices, all while utilizing the tools and hardware currently deployed, all while improving security and locking down remote access.
3 comments so far. What are your thoughts?
Nice App. I Saw the demo. I will show it to my boss. We might use it at our company.
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