Increasing Demand At The Edge

A shift is occurring at the edge, with enterprises prioritizing network infrastructure at remote sites. As IoT deployments increase, organizations are becoming more reliant upon data generated outside of the traditional data center.

To meet constantly growing demands, organizations are adding more critical applications at the edge with market growth expected to reach $9 billion by 2024. As this occurs, enterprises must be able to match the resilience, scalability, and high-availability found in the data center with a smart solution.

To learn more about evolving needs at the edge, download our white paper!

Network Resilience At Remote Sites

Smart Out-of-Band (Smart OOB™) paired with Failover to Cellular™ enables enterprises to ensure resilient backup connectivity to remote networks. Providing access to infrastructure during disruptions, organizations are able to ensure business continuity and uptime for critical applications.

Smart Out-of-Band adds intelligence to the edge, allowing enterprises to manage infrastructure at multiple sites. Designed to exceed the needs of IT and IoT resilience, it enables advanced capabilities for automatic responses for identification and remediation at the network edge.

Failover to Cellular ensures uninterrupted availability for remote networks with 4G LTE. Built on robust IP Passthrough technology, it is easily integrated into existing installs or can be rapidly deployed for instant-on connectivity for new networks and branch locations.

Lighthouse Enterprise serves as a central hub for remote sites, providing a clear view across the network. By reducing human error and guaranteeing repeatability, organizations reduce the chance of small network events becoming large scale disruptions.

Watch our video to learn more about Smart Out-of-Band.

Keeping the Network Running, All the Time

Network resilience is the ability to provide and maintain an acceptable level of service in the face of faults that challenge normal operations. More than just improving uptime or building in redundancy, network resilience adds a layer of intelligence to the backbone of an enterprise – the IT infrastructure.

In an independent survey of IT Leaders, 49% said that Network Resilience was their #1 Priority.

To ensure maximum uptime, enterprises need a comprehensive solution designed to provide the highest levels of business continuity through proactive monitoring and remediation.

Learn more about ensuring network resilience by reading our latest blog.

Redundant Isn’t Resilient

Redundancy is an important part of the puzzle, and the reliability of a data center relies heavily on back-up generators, on-hand replacement hardware and secondary network connections. But while redundancy is a part of the resilience solution, it is not the only consideration. In smaller locations and satellite offices, it’s not cost effective to build in redundancy. And with no technical staff on site, the ability to monitor, manage and remediate the IT infrastructure remotely is a significant addition to a resilient solution.

Smart Out-of-Band management allows the network engineering team to securely access critical devices from a central location, to anticipate and remediate issues without sending a tech to site.

Discover the networking issues that are keeping senior IT decision-makers awake at night. Read the independent research commissioned by Opengear.

The Network Resilience Platform

The Opengear Network Resilience Platform is based on the presence and proximity of a Smart OOB Console Server at every IT location, centrally orchestrated through the Lighthouse Software.

The Network Resilience Platform provides secure remote access to your critical network resources through a separate management plane, with the ability to automate processes, such as securely deploying and provisioning equipment, and to access Remote IP devices at any edge location.

This platform is the Network Engineer’s Network. Secure remote access, via physical hardware at each location, providing an always-available independent network open only to the core network team; to be used on Day One, for everyday management, and during production network events.

Opengear’s Smart Out-of-Band technology, plus the use of open architecture NetOps automation tools (Docker support, Python runtime environment), provides secure access to console ports while also creating a robust management plane.

Schedule a Demo to learn more about our Network Resilience Platform

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.

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.

Device Testing

To ensure that customers receive fully functioning products, extensive testing is completed before shipment. Unrealistic for one operator to efficiently run these Devices Under Test through the QA process, advanced features of Opengear console servers remediates this issue ensuring speed and high reliability for always on access. Allowing up to 96 devices to be connected at once, programming enables it to simulate operator input through a series of standard tests. Alerts, pass/fails and input/outputs are available to the QA team for final verification. Cascading allows multiple Opengear console servers to be clustered with one unit acting as the master to thousands of serial ports. These lab networks can then test large batches of devices with minimal operator intervention which enables efficient, high density testing and leads to significant cost savings.

Remote testers can:

• Recover from error conditions
• Power cycle a locked up device
• Reboot and reconfigure different versions of software

Firmware Validation

One of the most common applications for network labs is validating firmware upgrades and regression testing on various versions of operating systems. In these cases, any action or output must be logged and available for analysis – console errors, results, edge cases, random re-boots, last gasp trace and more. Opengear console servers support multiple versions of firmware with large embedded memory. There is also support for power cycling frozen test devices with preconfigured alerts while all actions and outputs are logged for analysis.

Connect to a wide range of devices with:

• USB
• Ethernet
• Serial ports

Provisioning New Lab Networks

Zero Touch Provisioning allows lab network engineers to set up new devices with automation to enable quick deployment and configuration in new, multi-vendor environments. Paired with Smart Out-of-Band engineers are able to manage and monitor remote equipment. High port densities allow for a wide variety of configurations while multiple firmware updates are enabled with embedded memory.

Creating Smarter Networks

SD-WAN provides organizations with secure network connections at a lower cost. Creating more agile Wide Area Networks (WANs) that are able to support the increasingly sophisticated distribution of network devices across multiple sites, the wide range of SD-WAN benefits have made it the standard in enterprise deployments.

These benefits include:

• Secure connection of standard broadband via a dynamic VPN tunnel
• Increased flexibility of new networks
• Reduced costs using commodity hardware
• Quick deployment of new networks

To provide these benefits however, the local routers in SD-WAN deployments have become more sophisticated which can pose challenges to traditional network management which expects constant network connectivity.

To learn more about smart solutions necessary for SD-WAN deployments, download our white paper today!

Understanding Potential SD-WAN Interrupters

The new flexibility enabled by SD-WAN brings with it a heightened need for remote engineers to manage on-site devices. The sophistication of the SD-WAN hardware introduces points of failure which without the proper solutions in place, become large scale disruptions.

These points of failure include:

Updates: Every time a firmware update is executed, there is a risk of a misconfiguration or error which can bring down the router.

Security: SD-WAN needs additional security offerings to protect the enterprise. The primary SD-WAN connection must be secure, and must be added to any other security solution being deployed.

Read our SD-WAN Solutions Overview Sheet to learn more about possible points of failure.

Ensuring Network Resilience with SD-WAN

SD-WAN is not a standalone solution. During the initial rollout or migration from the previous WAN, an organization’s network can be left unstable with frequent updates and glitches. Although there are many benefits to SD-WAN deployments, single points of failure can result with potential downtime. Smart Out-of-Band supports SD-WAN deployments, allowing engineers to access the network at all times.

Smart Out-of-Band is separate to the production network, providing engineers the ability to remotely monitor and manage all remote devices so that a disruption won’t affect the primary operation. Ensuring continuity and uptime using automated intelligence, Smart Out-of-Band paired with Failover to Cellular™ enables network resilience by providing always on access. Lighthouse Enterprise provides full network visibility to diagnose and remediate the issue if disruption occurs.

Learn more about the benefits of Smart Out-of-Band from Opengear for your next SD-WAN deployment!

NetOps for your Network

DevOps tools are increasingly applied to networking, creating a NetOps approach to building and maintaining a reliable infrastructure to support the virtualized world – a network that is both available and agile. One approach to introducing NetOps into an enterprise is to layer it into an existing solution, adding functionality and flexibility to a familiar component of your infrastructure.

A Smart Out-of-Band management network already provides presence and proximity to your critical devices, and so is well-placed to bring NetOps automation to your network. The ability to run standard NetOps tools, such as Docker, Ansible, and Python on a console server provides a new way to automate your operations at centralized and remote locations.

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The OM Family of Console Servers

That solution now exists, in the new Opengear OM Family of Console Servers – Network Management appliances that combine the capabilities of a Smart OOB Console Server with the flexibility of NetOps Automation. They feature an x86 CPU to power automation tools, and a TMP2.0 chip for embedded security.

The compact OM1200 appliance is designed specifically for secure edge deployments, used in combination with Lighthouse Software, while the OM2200 appliance is configured for data centers and high density locations.

Integrated into Opengear’s Network Resilience Platform, they provide a separate, secure management plane which supports emerging requirements in Network Management and Automation.

PRODUCT DETAILS

Resilience for Your Network

Out-of-Band management’s primary application is to provide secure, remote access to your critical resources even when the primary network is down. It offers presence and proximity to your distributed network, with a console server at every location, physically connected to routers, switches and key hardware. The addition of 4G-LTE provides a secure alternative access path, and Failover to Cellular^TM provides enough bandwidth for critical processes to continue to operate during an outage. When the network goes down, Out-of-Band keeps you running.

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First Day, Worst Day, and Every Day

Is it smart to rely on the Production network to manage your network every day? With secure remote access to your devices via the console servers, Out-of-Band (OOB) management creates an always-on independent management plane, giving you reliable access to monitor and manage your IT infrastructure. Lock down the most critical functions on the Production network, and use the more secure OOB network to configure and manage your devices. Out-of-Band is the Network Engineer’s Network.

An investment in Out-of-Band Management is an investment that pays off every day.

• Secure Day One provisioning is now possible, using an OM2200 or OM1200 with embedded physical security, capable of running Docker containers and Python scripts.
• Everyday management and monitoring of your IT infrastructure is more secure and more resilient over the independent management plane, separate from the Production network
• Global cellular modules and centralized management software ensures access to your critical devices to fix the issue, when the primary network goes down

DOWNLOAD OUR WHITEPAPER

Resilience in the Data Center 

Smart OOB allows organizations across the globe to ensure resilient backup connectivity, seamlessly access devices in remote data centers and reduce costs. Opengear’s console servers and infrastructure management solutions provide resilience and dependability to improve management functions.

Learn how cloud provider Secura Hosting utilized Smart OOB to reduce the time-consuming nature of dispatching engineers to its data center sites to make configuration changes and troubleshoot issues. Having deployed Smart Out-of-Band by Opengear, they’ve improved their management capabilities which led to a return on investment in just seven months

READ OUR CASE STUDY

An Edge Network as Reliable
as the Data Center

Your customers expect the same level of service, no matter where their data comes from. As computing moves closer to the edge of the network, the high uptime of a data center must be translated to small, remote locations. With no engineer on site, and with physical redundancy cost-prohibitive at each location, you need an alternative approach to resilience. Always-on access to an independent, secure management plane via a centralized software system provides a way to monitor and remediate issues at your edge locations without sending someone to site. Out-of-Band adds resilience to your network.

In an independent survey of 500 Global IT Leaders, 49% said that Network Resilience was their #1 Priority.

Detecting and remediating remotely

Hyperscale data centers house thousands of devices and although their modular design allows operators to easily add resources as needed, their sheer size creates network visibility challenges. Constantly growing, operators are running into challenges that are causing outages and downtime. An alternative path to devices located at remote sites, Smart Out-of-Band (Smart OOB™) allows hyperscale providers to maintain connectivity if this occurs. Operators are able to securely monitor and access all devices without impacting normal operations to ensure business continuity.

When an error occurs, locating the exact router that is experiencing an issue can take hours or days without the right solution. Using Smart OOB operators are able to automatically find where an error has occurred and if it can be remediated or needs to be replaced to ensure business continuity.