Tight budgets and sparse IT staffing makes managing remote mission-critical IT, network, and power devices while meeting enterprise uptime requirements a challenge for IT managers.
The solution is the Secure Serial Server with Cisco pinout. This highly reliable and feature-rich console server simplifies out-of-band management of your network, server, and power infrastructure in data centers and remote sites.
Use it for easy and affordable out-of-band access to routers, switches, PDUs, firewalls, and other serial consoles. The server gives you visibility and control of your network and its physical environment for reliable 24/7 uptime. It provides serial console-port connectivity and supports environmental monitoring, power management, and monitoring, plus remote site storage of off-line logs.
The console server features everything you need to make remote management and fault recovery easy and affordable: an intuitive status monitoring dashboard, pro-active alerting, vendor-neutral power management, and simple secure access to devices. You'll be able to maximize uptime while reducing the hassle and expense of truck rolls and remote site visits.
Who can benefit from the Secure Serial Server?
- Business with remote offices.
- Organizations with limited IT staffing and budgets.
- Colocation tenants in data centers.
- Cloud and hosting providers; ISPs.
- Research and lab environments.
- Government, education, and healthcare organizations.
Smart out-of-band management
The Secure Serial Server gives you features that go far beyond traditional out-of-band management devices. Use it to pro-actively detect faults before they become failures. You can monitor and log system's health and physical environmental conditions, such as temperature, humidity, motion, etc. You can also use the server to monitor and control UPSs and PDUs for disruptions, surges, and power cycling. The intuitive build-in dashboard gives you an overall status-at-a-glance.
Dual ports for built-in redundancy
In addition to the traditional RS-232 serial console port connections, the console server supports direct USB 2.0 connections to one or two Cisco USB console ports (just use its embedded AJAX terminal for accessing the connected serial devices). The dual USB ports enable you to attach peripherals, such as storage and USB consoles.
Dual Gigabit Ethernet ports facilitate connections to primary and secondary networks. The server detects any communications failure on the primary port and switches to the second RJ-45 connection automatically. You can remotely cycle power and reboot computers, even when their operating system is unresponsive
Extensive environmental and power monitoring
The Secure Serial Server with Cisco Pinout supports extensive environmental monitoring, alert, and power event-notification functions. Alerts can be sent via e-mail, SMS, and SNMP traps. Also, the console server supports graceful shutdowns, ping detect reboots, and running of custom scripts when alerts are triggered.
For example, you can set it up to power cycle on a managed device when a specific alert event occurs or to send multiple notification e-mails when an alert triggers. (The console server uses a Linux operating system with source code access and has a custom development kit.)
Because you can use the console server to manage ports on PDUs, UPSs, and environmental monitoring devices—and, in the process, cut power consumption, reduce utility bills, and lessen environmental impact. It's a great addition to any IT department or company wanting to initiate "clean tech" energy conservation.
NOTE: Optional external environmental or I/O monitoring equipment required.
The solution for service providers
The console server is also ideal for service providers who need access to client-side devices, even those located behind firewalls. Control a wide selection of UPS systems and switched PDUs from different manufacturers.
Security-enhancing features
- An enterprise-class firewall with selectable and customizable system security levels.
- FIPS 140-2 validated encryption for government and the military.
- Secure remote management and disaster recovery features.
- A physically separate management LAN enables you to isolate devices from standard network access.
- Two-factor RSA SecurID and Kerberos authentication.
- RADIUS, TACACS+, or LDAP/Active Directory server authorization.
- On- and off-site logs for audit and compliance reporting.
- Extensive VPN support, including OpenVPN and IPSec enterprise-grade PKI VPN remote access.
What's more, because the server features 4 GB of on-site FTP/TFTP flash storage, you can store device configuration files locally, including multiple local boot images, and roll back if necessary. Store off-line logs for serial ports, available networks, and more.