Escaping the pitfalls of remote data center management

Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) continues to be a hot topic for data center managers in 2012 and while it’s important to keep up with new tech developments, it’s equally important to once in a while stop, and make sure that your basic management needs are really covered.

When dealing with IT infrastructure in a data center, remote access methods have become a key part of the IT manager’s tool box. But managing these tools is a sizable job in itself. In every IT environment there are a variety of remote access tools that have been purchased departmentally or have come into the data center or network closet as a result of the preferences of different technical teams, who've chosen – and don’t want to relinquish – these tools to accomplish specific tasks. All of this brings significant complexity to the overall data center management process. 

Data centers are highly dynamic and complex environments. They are multi-disciplinary, multi-vendor and multi-user to name just a few. New equipment is added at an astounding rate, in some cases to geographically disparate locations. All of this has to be accessed and managed in a remote, efficient and secure manner that doesn’t leave you relying on the glue on the back of a post-it note to be able to find critical information in the event of an IT emergency. 

A few weeks ago, we described how a DCIM system is compromised if you cannot manage the access to your data center infrastructure. When you’re faced with downed systems and are in a somewhat helpless state, having a readily available solution that enables you to diagnose, access, troubleshoot and fix a problem remotely over the LAN or Internet can be the difference between an ordinary workday and one that leaves you anxiously scrambling for answers and wasting precious time.

In our upcoming live webinar ‘The Secret Behind A Bulletproof DCIM Strategy’ on Tuesday, January 24th @ 2pm EST, we discuss more about remote data center management and how Remote Access Management is a critical piece of DCIM, used daily by IT admins to run, maintain and fix their data center's IT infrastructure. Register Now!

What do slices of a hot Pizza have to do with DCIM?

No Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) is complete without a Remote Access Management system in place!

The Full DCIM Pizza

Yes, you heard right. Now, you are probably asking, what does Remote Access Management have to do with DCIM?

The answer is - A lot! Today infrastructure equipment at all levels is becoming more important and more critical to the smooth operation of data centers, in other words, it has direct impact on lowering costs, tightening security and increasing efficiency. But DCIM is not only about monitoring and planning, it is also about managing all your access control tools and methods.

Remote Access Management (RAM) is one of the most vital slices of the DCIM ‘Pizza’ that is not getting the full attention it deserves. So let’s cut the chase and state it clearly: All other DCIM slices, as important as they may be, are compromised if you cannot manage the access to your data center infrastructure!

Think of the ordering process of a hot, sizzling family Pizza – the pictures on the website look awesome, you can practically “smell” the Pizza over the phone. The person taking your order is sweet and polite, you get all the flavors you asked for and you even get a special price for being such a nice guy, but – all this is worthless without a fast and reliable delivery that brings the Pizza hot and sizzling to your doorstep…  

So why don’t you take a closer look at your overall DCIM strategy and make sure that you have all the slices in place, and not missing the management of your remote access!

PRESS RELEASE: Minicom Lowers Operational Costs and Increases Operational Efficiency for Data Centers and Server Rooms

With enhanced version of remote access management solution offering expanded support for PDU and console server vendors, IT managers preserve existing equipment

We are introducing an enhanced version of our remote access management platform, AccessIT™, at Interop Las Vegas 2010, Booth #2729. With AccessIT, a Web-based management solution, IT personnel impose order on the chaos of mixed product environments with fast, secure, and simple remote access.

System crashes in the data center are potentially disastrous given today’s expectations of 24/7 uptime, and short resolution time is essential. AccessIT’s speed makes a significant difference when a server is down. IT managers shave critical seconds off downtime using single sign-on. Mission critical applications are restored quickly, with minimal disruption of workflow. With the inclusion of single sign-on and exclusive mode, users of AccessIT can now enjoy even more peace of mind when it comes to security. IT managers love that they can get the system up and running in hours rather than days or weeks, and that there is a short learning curve for new personnel.

A unique, open platform system, this cost-effective solution saves on IT expenditure by preserving past investments and preventing vendor lock-in. The latest version of AccessIT is an embodiment of Minicom’s Real Needs™ approach. The ability to repurpose power, KVM, and serial equipment rather than replacing it with all new products radically reduces the overall cost of introducing a remote access management system. Companies only buy what they need rather than having to purchase entire packages. By embracing IT products from a wide range of vendors, AccessIT enables organizations to leverage their existing IT equipment, knowledge, and training. Additionally, this open platform system opens up choices: businesses have the freedom of choosing IT infrastructure products and vendors based on value, performance and quality.

IT managers enjoy a “single pane of glass” view of their IT infrastructure and access methods (power, serial, KVM, and software), enabling quick, easy access and control. AccessIT now supports a wide range of vendors of PDUs, such as APC, Black Box, CyberSwitching, Geist, Dell, Eaton, HP, and Server Technology, and a large selection of vendors of console servers, such as Cyclades (Avocent), Digi International, Aten, Perle Systems Limited, and OpenGear.

Visit Minicom at Interop in Las Vegas, Nevada, April 27th through 29th, at Booth #2729.

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If you can't make it to Interop this time, you can still test drive AccessIT via our online demo.

Minicom’s Innovative, Secure KVM Switch is a Hit with Network Computing

After thorough testing in a computing lab, Network Computing (European Edition) chose the Smart 232 IP as an “Editor’s Pick,” highlighting the fact that it is easy to install, easy to configure and easy to control (full story here).

Awards and more awards…between this and AccessIT™’s Product Innovation Award, we are running out of room on our trophy shelf. Watch this space to see what honors are bestowed on Minicom next!

Noisy Data Center? Try Remote Management

Can’t hear yourself think in the data center? Those whirring fans can be more than just an annoyance – they are potentially damaging, with the ability to cause permanent hearing loss.

This article on Processor.com makes concrete suggestions for how to tune out the problem:

“If noise is still an issue for enterprise employees, even more radical action may be needed, Deaderick [Tom Deaderick, director of OnePartner Advanced Technology and Applications Center] says. Consider letting employees work remotely or at home some days of the week. This is also an option for employees who work inside especially loud server rooms. ‘No one complains about the noise in a server room when they are using remote management tools from an office five miles away,’ he says.”

If you decide to go this route, check out Minicom’s remote management tools.

The Pros and Cons of a Lights-Out Data Center

This article on ServerWatch by Kenneth Hess poses the question, “Is It Lights-Out for Your Data Center?”

Hess explains this new data center trend in the following terms:

“The question is how many IT, facilities and security people does it really take to operate a data center? Should you always go with the bare minimum? Many newer data centers operate with the following premise: Security staff is a primary requirement, and IT staff is dispensable.

Does this surprise you? It shouldn't. The trend is to do everything remotely that you can do remotely. Cabling, racking and provisioning are still hands-on tasks, but the staff members who perform those functions are often contracted on an as-needed basis. The few remaining hands-on activities occur less frequently these days through the magic of virtualization and the ability to perform remote power-off and -on tasks.”

Hess goes on to explore the upside (financial savings) and downside (no hands-on staff) of a lights-out data center. On the whole, he comes down on the side of a lights-out data center as an option worth exploring.

Minicom’s remote access solutions can be a valuable component of lights-out data center, as administrators can access, control and monitor their IT infrastructure from any location.

PX Saves Valuable Time & Money for IT Outsourcing Company

The Client: A local IT outsourcing company that services approx. 50 clients and until now has used VNC as a remote support software. His client lists includes a dozen or so small branch offices, local non-profit organizations and real estate offices, all local small and medium businesses in the same metropolitan city.

His Problems: He needs to cut overhead by reducing travel costs and valuable time. He would also like to eventually expand his client base to towns farther away.

His Customers Needs: When a computer crashes and can’t be fixed using VNC, there is significant down time before he arrives and fixes it. Also, when a client hires someone new and has a new computer, they need to wait for a technician to come to configure it.

Minicom Solution: He bought 50 PX units and preconfigured them in his lab then sent them to each customer. When there is a problem, instead of sending a technician to fix it he instructs the customer with the problem PC to take the PX from its storage place, plug it in and proceeds with his service. In the past, when a client orders a new computer, instead of using precious time to travel and physically configure it, he instructs them to plug in the PX and he is able to set everything up remotely.

Added Benefit: Not only is the PX plug and play – it’s a simple to explain and simple to use solution. It was particularly attractive to this customer because he was able to choose between USB, PS2 or Serial versions. He was able to support each customer with a PX according to their needs.

If you want to see if the PX is the right remote access solution for you – test drive it and other IP products in our online demo right now!

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Related Material:
White Paper – Remote Support Using KVM IP Technology
Case Study – PX with KVM.net for Centralized Management
Podcast – PX for the Managed Service Provider (3 min)
Product Brochure - PX (pdf)

ABC’s of Remote Management

Once upon a time organizations built redundant infrastructures at remote sites to ensure stability of their IT infrastructure. Now, many organizations turn to IP-based remote management technologies which offer a more cost-efficient centralized IT management solution. These solutions allow remote access to computers/servers to conduct maintenance, service faulty devices or simply reboot frozen operating systems. Today remote server management has become a standard for enterprise class data centers.

More and more, the ability to access servers from outside the server room or office has become increasingly important to small and medium size organizations. Due to shrinking IT staffs and budgets, it is more crucial for these customers to have KVM IP access to their infrastructures.

Why has remote KVM IP access become the standard at the enterprise level and why is it so important to medium and small sized businesses?

To find out watch our latest Webcast “The ABC’s of Remote Management” (Length - 27 minutes)

Speaker: David Zucker, Director of KVM Business Development, Minicom

Talking points:
What is remote management?
The value of KVM Switches
Why use IP KVM?
The Benefits of Real NeedsTM

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Related Material:

White Paper: “Protect Your IT investment with KVM IP Management”
Case Study: AGH University in Poland - one universal system with access and control by 3 or more administrators
Article: “Reducing Travel Costs with Remote Server Access”

Webinar on Demand: The Challenge for Hospital IT Managers

With hundreds of servers spread throughout numerous locations, it can be extremely time consuming and challenging to track down and manage troublesome servers and network devices in hospital environments. To solve these challenges and make the day to day maintenance of servers and devices in hospital network closets more efficient, Minicom has developed the solution outlined in this quick webinar.



Learn "How to use Remote Management of Network Closets in the Hospital Environment"

Total time: 12 minutes

Presented by: David Zucker, Director of KVM Business Development, Minicom

Minicom Article: KVM IP Management for Today’s IT Budget

Add-On Technology that Maximizes Your IT Installed Base

By Kenneth Dukofsky, Marketing Communications Manager of Minicom Advanced Systems

The numerous benefits of remote KVM IP access and management have made them the new must have technologies for IT managers. With KVM IP, companies can perform remote maintenance, increase response times, reduce downtime, slash travel costs and increase security. Unfortunately many remote access and management solutions are too costly for SMB’s. Much of their high costs derive from the contemporary “Rip and Replace” approach.

With over 60% of KVM switches in server rooms analog-based, IT administrators have a heavy investment in their current KVM systems. But when it comes to adding KVM IP access, most KVM manufacturers advocate replacing everything. In order to add KVM IP access to your server environment these companies make you completely remove your perfectly functioning analog KVM switches and replace them with their KVM switches with built-in IP technology. This makes their solutions very costly as you are paying for the KVM switch component twice, once for the analog KVM switch that you are throwing away and once for the new one.

An alternative approach allows companies to upgrade their existing analog switches; transforming them into IP enabled KVM switches. This is achieved by simply adding a technology layer on top of the legacy KVM systems, safeguarding the company investment. This cost effective solution, where you buy only what you need, costs less than half the price of competing systems. This approach saves time and money without sacrificing functionality providing a cost effective solution to KVM IP access. Minicom Advanced Systems calls this the Real Needs ™ approach.

The Real Needs approach is an affordable way to add KVM IP access that makes more sense for the end user. All companies really need to remotely control IT devices is a KVM IP gateway and a management system that is third party KVM switch compatible. There is simply no need to replace analog KVM switches. With the Real Needs approach companies upgrade to IP access and management for half the price of conventional methods saving tens of thousands of dollars in the process.

The Real Needs approach also slashes installation costs. IT managers have spent months building the perfect server racks and years laying wires all over their building. The thought of ripping up thousands of meters/feet of wire and laying brand new ones is a nightmare. Instead of destroying everything they have built up over the years and starting all over from zero, they can keep everything in place. With the Real Needs approach they simply add an additional technology layer on top of the existing systems. Not only do IT managers save themselves many hours of work, they also eliminate critical downtime for their company in the process.

Click here to read more about add-on technology that maximizes your IT installed base in Minicom’s new white paper
“KVM IP Management for Today’s IT Budget”.


Please visit our website for free informative resources such as white papers, case studies, podcasts and webinars on the subjects of KVM and Digital Signage.

The writer, Kenneth Dukofsky, is the Marketing Communications Manager of Minicom Advanced Systems. Minicom manufactures KVM server and computer management solutions that facilitate the control of the enterprise and corporate IT environments. Additionally, Minicom is an innovative manufacturer of distribution and extension solutions that provide the Digital Signage Last Mile™ player-to-screens stage of connectivity for Digital Signage systems. Minicom is an Intel Capital portfolio company and was named a Deloitte Technology Fast 500 company. Founded in 1988 Minicom has an international presence in over 70 countries, with headquarters in Israel and regional offices in North America and Europe.

Reducing Travel Costs with Remote Server Access

In the current recession and with the recent steep climb in oil prices, companies are looking for ways to reduce their travel expenses. Travel also causes damage to the environment. A single passenger flying business class from New York to London will cause the emission of 3.5 tons of CO2 increasing the amount of greenhouse gasses responsible for global warming.

Due to the high cost of travel, many IT professionals are forced to limit both maintenance and repair efforts to a few scheduled onsite visits. Important work may be left undone for days or weeks. If the problem requires specialized hardware or software, work can be delayed even further – whether the visit is across the city or across the world.

There is however a way to keep IT assets running smoothly by remotely maintaining your computers via remote access. Instead of hopping into a car or plane to maintain or fix remote computers, IT staff can access the computers and work on them from the comfort of their own office, saving their company thousands of dollars in the process.

Taking it to the next level, using a KVM IP hardware solution allows accessing your servers at the deeper BIOS level, something software solutions are unable to accomplish. Remote access uses digital access to (keyboard, video, mouse) KVM switches via the TCP/IP (internet) protocol in order to allow administrators to manage systems from anywhere in the world.

This KVM access enables a number of unique missions to be performed of which remote software solutions are incapable, such as: booting from another hard disk if the main hard disk is broken; bypassing faulty hardware components; entering the Windows recovery console; entering ‘safe mode’ without networking; reconfiguring low level drivers; remotely booting to another operating system (dual boot); recovering and restoring the hard drive from a previous image etc.

According to an Intel Corporation study on trouble tickets and spending[1], approximately 5 percent of technical desktop computer-related support incidents represent slightly over 50 percent of total support costs, largely due to the costs of labor and travel. Certainly, any way to cut the cost of remote diagnosis/service—even just one of every four or five incidents—can mean significant budget savings, as well as returning users to business as usual.

Supportindustry.com reports that most IT help desk managers surveyed said that having instant access to accurate diagnostic information would make it faster (66 percent) and easier (62 percent) to resolve problems[2].

Due to spiraling travel costs, remote IT access has evolved from a luxury into a necessity. IT managers can simply no longer afford to be without it. Using remote access solutions, your computers and intelligent devices can be monitored and maintained from anywhere in the world. Problems can thereby be diagnosed more accurately and fixed in less time and at lower cost. Please visit our website for free informative resources such as white papers, case studies, podcasts and webinars on the subjects of KVM and Digital Signage.

By Kenneth Dukofsky, Marketing Communications Manager of Minicom Advanced Systems

The writer Kenneth Dukofsky is the Marketing Communications Manager of Minicom Advanced Systems. Minicom manufactures KVM server and computer management solutions that facilitate the control of the enterprise and corporate IT environments. Additionally, Minicom is an innovative manufacturer of distribution and extension solutions that provide the Digital Signage Last Mile™ player-to-screens stage of connectivity for Digital Signage systems. Minicom is an Intel Capital portfolio company and was named a Deloitte Technology Fast 500 company. Founded in 1988 Minicom has an international presence in over 70 countries, with headquarters in Israel and regional offices in North America and Europe.

[1] Intel IT Trouble Tickets & Spending, Intel Corp., 2003
[2] 66% of IT Help Desk Managers Not Completely Satisfied with Help Desk Technology Investment, Reports SupportSoft