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Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP)
In hyperscale infrastructures, automation is the name of the game.
Network administrators tasked with deploying large scale IT infrastructure increasingly look to automate the deployment process. Traditional deployments require them to log into a single unit via CLI and configure all settings – and then rinse and repeat. This rinse and repeat model is error prone and mistakes could easily be made which could prevent out-of-band access during critical failures. By leveraging Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP), administrators can now automate repetitive tasks, reduce human touch points, reduce errors and scale the deployment process to any size. Customizable scripting and file types allow ZTP to be flexible in any type of environment.
Opengear’s Zero Touch Deployment
- Cellular connectivity for Day One installations to prevent unnecessary delays
- Shared hardware reduces deployment costs
- Use a DHCP and file server to provision devices with configuration and firmware during initial boot
- Built-in ZTP for rapid and automated configuration deployment
- Adaptable for existing provisioning systems
Faster Deployment with Opengear
An Opengear customer in the media and communications industry was utilizing the standard deployment method on a new large data center with many rows of equipment. They utilized a DHCP server on a cart and ZTP to provision 4 devices at a time. The Network Admins then verified the setup and moved onto the next batch. Due to the scale of the deployment, this was inefficient and very costly with each set taking about 2 days. When they transitioned to Opengear’s solution, eliminating the need for manual setup of each individual device, the deployment time was reduced to 2 hours and with additional tweaks reduced that time to 20 minutes.
Sanity Check Your Network
Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) ensures the network is setup as it was designed. In a large and complex data center, it can be a tedious and time-consuming task to verify the installation, and an incorrect connection could cause issues down the road including network downtime and loss of revenue. LLDP will ensure the network topology is correct and that the connections between the devices are correctly installed. This automates the verification process instead of checking every port and every cable.