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"SecureLinx Spider™ provides secure
remote KVM (keyboard, video, mouse)
BIOS-level server management over an
IP network. It is a flexible, scalable and affordable KVM -over IP solution"
Source : Lantronix
Using Keyboard, Video, and Mouse over IP to Connect Remote Networks
Remote Networks is also known as :
Remote Network Connections,
Remote Networks Technologies,
Remote Network Access,
Securing Remote Network,
Remote Network Management,
Remote Website Network,
Remote PC Access,
Remote Control Program,
Remote Network Monitoring,
Remote Network Support,
Local Remote Network,
Remote Desktop Management,
Remote Network Computer,
Free Remote Network,
Remote Network Downloads,
Troubleshoots Remote Networks,
Create Remote Network,
Remote Network Quarantine,
Maintain Remote Network.
Introduction
With 27% of all businesses and an estimated 97% of large enterprises having branch
offices making up some six million satellite facilities1, the demand on IT departments
supporting geographically dispersed networking infrastructure continues to grow. And
it’s not just branch locations that are fueling the demand; the very nature of business
today demands a level of constant connectivity never seen before. In order to function
effectively and stay competitive in the global arena, people at branch offices, remote
facilities – or just on the other side of the corporate campus – require access to the same
information and systems available a
main headquarters. This demand
creates a dispersed network
environment with widely distributed
IT assets, which in turn creates a
greater administrative challenge for
maintaining equipment to ensure
network uptime. To meet this
demand, organizations take
advantage of remote infrastructure
management equipment to access
and manage servers and IT
equipment over the Internet.
KVM (keyboard/video/mouse) over IP is an effective tool for remotely managing servers
regardless of their physical location. With BIOS-level access, system administrators can
monitor and respond to server issues from virtually anywhere over an Internet
connection. For this reason, server management with remote KVM switches have become
the cornerstone of most data centers today.
However, for all its benefits, KVM has a number of limitations when placed in the
“distributed IT environment” where equipment is dispersed throughout a large building,
across a campus or even across the globe. These limitations include:
- Limited configuration flexibility and expandability: Traditional KVM over IP
switches come in multi-port configurations (8/16/32, for example). In the branch
office environment however, there may only be two servers, leaving some unused
ports and increasing the cost-per-port. Or, adding an additional server to an even port
count can force administrators to purchase an extra multi-port switch when only a
single additional port is required.
- Potential blocked access to critical servers: Typical high-density KVM over IP
solutions allow access to a limited number of managed servers at a time. For
example a high-end 8-port KVM may only allow one or two servers to be accessed at
a time. In a busy IT environment, this could prevent an administrator from
performing needed maintenance or service.
- Reliability and access to multiple servers: If access to all 32 servers is through a
single Ethernet connection and the switch port fails, access to all 32 servers is lost.
- Need for extra hardware and software: Switch-based KVM over IP solutions may
require separate KVM and serial “dongles” to be attached to the server(s). Special client-based software may also be required. And, additional external power supply(s)
may be necessary.
- Distance limitation between servers and the KVM switch: KVM over IP switches
have a CAT5 cable length distance limitation of approximately 50 to 150 feet
between the server and the KVM before the analog signal begins to degrade, limiting
the flexibility in a distributed IT environment.
Because of these considerations, IT professionals should understand the challenges
associated with implementing KVM, as well as the differences between “high-density”
and “distributed KVM” in order to select the best technology solution for their
environment. This paper will present the complexities of managing the distributed data
center and highlight the advantages of using a KVM over IP solution that delivers
flexible, scalable and affordable CAT5-based remote access.
IT Changes, IT Stays the Same
Today’s IT professionals continue to be challenged by
unrelenting changes in the enterprise: explosive data growth,
more compliance regulations, increased application
complexity, geographic distribution of assets, and expanding
SLAs2 with tighter MTTR3 requirements, just to name a few.
Business continuity is the critical requirement for companies
of all sizes to remain competitive, with 24/7 application
uptime and secure global ‘anytime anywhere’ information
access, which is a fundamental operational need that has f
on the IT team to design, support, maintain and deliver. The
financial and operational repercussions of system down
continue to be very severe, resulting in reduced employee
productivity, regulatory penalties, added costs and large
revenue impacts. A 2006 study estimated the combined cost of
one hour of downtime cost the average business more than $1
million USD4.
Additionally, a growing number of business applications are now mission critical,
consuming additional IT personnel and budget resources that have not kept pace with
changes. Take company e-mail as an example. As much as 75% of a company’s
intellectual property is contained in e-mail messages5, with IT administrators spending
more than 25% of their time managing their e-mail infrastructure alone6.
With all these changes, some things have remained unchanged. IT departments are still
expected to develop strategic and tactical plans that control costs, mitigate operational
risk and improve data protection and information availability.
Whether an organization is large or small, maintaining and managing a secure and
continuous distributed information infrastructure with limited resources is a challenge
every IT professional faces today.
The (Re) Distributed Data Center
The fundamental concept of the data center is changing rapidly and dramatically. Primary
data center elements including applications, servers, infrastructure and storage are being
virtualized and redistributed in order to lower cost and complexity, improve asset
utilization, and operational efficiencies.
Hosted applications, software as a service (SaaS), server-based appliances, grids and
utility computing are becoming ubiquitous. Small and medium companies now routinely
utilize server virtualization and network storage technologies, large enterprises are
rapidly consolidating Tier 1 assets and operations, while growing branch office and
remote production facilities. A recent article in a prominent IT publication stated that
more than half of a company’s data and servers reside outside what we consider to be the
data center7. The sheer number of remote branch offices (ROBOs) with servers and
applications requiring IT management is astounding: over six million branches and over 8
million small businesses, with 27% of all businesses having branch offices, and an
estimated 97% of large enterprises having branch office facilities8.
In addition to ROBOs and large scale geographic distribution of IT assets requiring 24/7
management, small scale campus and building IT infrastructure deployments are
becoming increasingly interconnected, and have identical uptime and information
availability requirements as the Tier 1 enterprise and ROBOs. According to a recent
study9, educational institutions are increasing spending on internetworking solutions to
take advantage of the cost benefits offered by sharing resources amongst geographically
distributed institutions. This has been cited as the number one top trend in higher
education for networking between various branches and locations using LAN, WAN,
external access, and the Internet. Meanwhile, IT professionals are spending more time
managing security and other day-to-day challenges.
Even as IT assets become more distributed and interconnected, it is impractical for IT
professionals to be similarly redistributed. It is still more cost effective to maintain
centralized teams of professionals to provide IT support and management. The result is a
lack of IT staff on-site and ‘at the rack’ for remote and branch office locations. With an
absolute requirement to maintain system and application uptime everywhere, a primary
administrative challenge continues to be how to cost effectively deploy, manage,
maintain and troubleshoot geographically distributed servers and their applications with
limited and centralized IT personnel.
Servers Everywhere
Server management is the foundation of any IT management strategy. If a server fails,
applications fail, and operations come to an immediate halt. As the data center becomes
virtualized and redistributed, the purposes, location and form factor of servers also
changes, and the job of server management continues to evolve. In the Tier 1 enterprise,
server density is increasing both on the hardware side with smaller and more compact
form factors such as blade servers, and on the software side with growing adoption of
server virtualization technologies such as VMware™. In both enterprise and ROBO
environments, the use of servers as a platform has evolved from the days of core and
layered production servers to a broad array of data center server functions that include:
- E-mail / ‘Post office’ servers
- List servers
- FTP Servers
- Certificate servers
- Backup servers
- Content and information management servers
- Departmental servers
- Proxy servers
- Database servers
- DHCP/WINS servers
- DNS (lookup) servers
- Rich Media servers
- SMTP servers
- HTTP/Web servers / hosts
- Redundant servers
- VPN and Gateway servers
- Java hosting servers
- Application servers
- Communication servers
- Fax servers
- File servers
- News servers (e.g. Usenet)
- Standalone servers
- Specialty Appliances (server based)
- Test and Development servers
- Dedicated data processing machines
- Control server
In addition to the growth in the functions and types of servers, the location of servers is
expanding beyond the consolidated data center with racks and racks of servers:
The challenge of cost-effectively managing geographically dispersed servers has been
addressed in part by the introduction of KVM over IP solutions that provide secure
remote keyboard, video, mouse control of servers over an IP network. A KVM switch
allows a single keyboard, video display monitor, and mouse to be switched to any of a
number of computers at once, as opposed to having a single person interact with a
number of computers one at a time. KVM switches are commonly used at Web and other
server locations with multiple computers but can be managed with usually a single
administrator or Webmaster. The switch provides more table space in addition to saving
the cost of multiple keyboards and monitors.
| Servers Everywhere |
| Campus environments |
Factories |
| Mid-size businesses |
Government facilities |
Distributed IT infrastructures
(multi-floor, multi-building,multi-site) |
Educational facilities |
| Distributed facilities |
Dark data center facilities |
| Remote sites |
Convention centers |
| Remote branch offices (ROBOs) |
Corporate offices |
| Departmental IT |
Kiosks |
Labs: computer test labs, call
centers, help desks, training rooms |
Small and medium business (SMB) |
Test and development
(engineering IT) |
Disaster recovery sites |
Server Management in the Distributed Data Center
In the distributed data center, there are many elements to consider when developing an
overall server IP-based KVM management strategy.
Guaranteed Anytime Anywhere Access. A server management solution should support
guaranteed access (anytime, anywhere) to servers regardless of how many users are
logged in. Criteria to look for include:
- Secure administrator access to servers over an IP network - from LAN or the Internet
- Non-blocked access to servers (e.g. no conflict for remote access)
- BIOS level access to servers
- No limitations on locations of servers (across the room, across the globe)
Simple and Non-Invasive. Any server management strategy should reduce complexity
and lower the overall IT workload. Deployment, installation and usage of a server
management solution should minimize or eliminate impact on the server, its operating
systems, services and applications. The solution should offer:
- Simple and quick installation
- No special hardware (management cards, etc.) to install in server
- No special software (drivers, application software) to install and maintain on server
- Operating system and application independent
- Simplified remote maintenance (e.g. Virtual Media support)
- No special software to install and maintain on clients
- Small size (form factor)
- Minimal power consumption and heat generation
- Flexible cabling (utilize CAT5 cabling)
- No special training required to install or operate
Flexible, Scalable and Cost Effective. The dynamic nature of the distributed data center
and cost constraints demands any remote server management solution to provide
flexibility and scalability as part of the solution, without requiring the purchase of
additional elements. A distributed solution should provide:
- No special software licenses to buy or maintain (client software, remote users, etc.)
- No special cabling limitations (supports CAT5 cabling)
- No special hardware or dongles to purchase and install
- Incremental ‘add-as-you-grow’ capability with no sudden cost increase to scale and
add additional servers or remote administrators
- No conflict with existing server management solutions (no ‘rip-and-replace’)
- Ability to enhance existing server management solutions (local KVM)
- Ability to integrate into larger remote (OOBI10) management architecture
Fault Tolerant and Secure. Distributed remote assets must be fault-tolerant and secure
by providing the following benefits:
- Allows management access when server, OS, or network stack is compromised
- No single point of failure (e.g. unit failure doesn’t effect other systems)
- Designed for high MTBF11 (e.g. no moving parts, cooling fans, power supplies)
- No special security software or infrastructure to purchase, install and maintain
- Uses existing IT security services (RADIUS, LDAP, Active Directory)
- Optional out-of-band access in case of network failure (e.g. serial modem access)
High-Density KVM or Distributed KVM
Traditional data centers with racks and racks of servers have primarily used high-density
KVM switch solutions which take up one to two units of rack space and allow a
connection to many servers. These solutions are tried and true and will continue to be
used in situations where high-density servers reside.
However, these systems usually require a capital investment for the hardware and often
require dedicated management software which, in some cases, also requires dedicated
servers to run the software even to the extent that multiple software and server licenses
are required for systems on different subnets. These solutions do not offer the flexibility
and scalability needed for the changing landscape of distributed infrastructures.
The trend toward distributed environments with many servers deployed throughout the
enterprise on different floors and extending outwards to remote branches requires a new
way of thinking. Creative solutions for leveraging the Internet to access servers without
the need to purchase high-density appliances or surrender to expensive software license
contracts are now a requirement.
Determining the right solution greatly depends on the type of environment, the direction
of the IT organization, and the underlying need for flexibility and scalability. For many
organizations, a co-existence of high-density and distributed KVM will be the solution
where flexibility and scalability are needed to augment existing high-density systems. For
the growing trend of distributed computing and organizations with larger remote branch
and campus environments, this new paradigm of distributed KVM with all its benefits
will take the lead.
Distributed KVM for the Distributed Data Center
Lantronix SecureLinx Spider™ provides secure KVM
(keyboard, video, mouse) management of servers over an
IP network. Unlike traditional KVM switches, Spider
offers a flexible, scalable and affordable CAT5-based
remote access KVM solution in a cable-friendly, compact
“zero-footprint” package.
The latest addition to the SecureLinx family of Device
Management and Control solutions, this KVM over IP
solution eliminates server-to-switch CAT5 cable distance
limitations, and gives system administrators non-intrusive
and cost-effective 24/7 access to servers across a wide
variety of IT/network environments: mission critical
servers in high-density data centers, servers distributed
over corporate campuses, multi-floor buildings,
remote/branch office sites, government facilities,
convention centers, POS/kiosks, etc. Management access,
from BIOS to applications, from any web browser
anywhere, at any time is guaranteed.
Amazingly scalable, Spider is a complete KVM switch that can be easily daisy-chained
together using Lantronix SwitchPort+™ integrated Ethernet switch technology. This
provides a cost-effective solution in environments where numerous cable drops and
distance limitations can be a challenge when adding servers. Rather than adding another
more costly switch that forces administrators into pre-defined multiples, administrators
can add remote IP users one server port at a time by simply deploying another Spider.
And network reliability increases as there is no single point of failure with Spider
deployments. If a unit is disabled, only access to that server is lost until the Spider is
replaced.
SecureLinx Spider provides continuous availability to servers with 1:1 non-blocked,
BIOS-level access. This allows administrators to have guaranteed access to mission
critical servers regardless of how many of them need remote access. In other words,
administrators are not “locked in” to a fixed number of remote users, and Spider offers an
extremely low-cost-per-remote-user for guaranteed non-blocked access. And no client
software or external power supply is required.
Benefits
- Full non-blocked access providing one of the lowest cost-per-remote-user server management solutions available
- Secure, full BIOS-level control of servers over an IP network
- Clean, flexible CAT5 KVM solution with virtually no cable length restrictions
- Completely integrated IP-based KVM switch in a “Zero U” form factor
- Cost-effective and easy “add-as-you-grow” scalability by daisy-chaining multiple units
- Compact server-powered design – no external power supply required
- Virtual Media support
- Browser-based – no client software required
- Each unit supports up to 8 simultaneous users
- Remote authentication support, including LDAP, RADIUS, and Active Directory
| High Density KVM |
Distributed KVM |
| 34 servers may require two 32-port KVMs or
some combination that leaves unused ports,
increasing the cost per port. |
With Spider, you can add one port at a time. |
| If a 32-port KVM unit fails, all access to those
connected servers is lost |
If a unit is disabled you lose access to just one
server; and Spider is easily replaced |
| If access to all 32 servers is through a single
Ethernet connection and the switch port fails,
access to all 32 servers is lost. |
Spiders can be cascaded or connected individually
back to a switch. They can even be distributed
among multiple switches so no single switch failure
cuts you off from all your servers. |
| Most high-density solutions require purchasing
dongles to connect to managed servers, increasing
cost. |
Spider has the necessary HD-15 video, USB and
PS/2 connections built in. |
| A typical high-density solution allows access to a
limited number of managed servers at a time. (A
high-end 32-port KVM may only allow as
many as 8 servers to be accessed at once.) |
Each Spider allows one or more people to connect to
a server. 32 Spiders means 32 simultaneous nonblocking
connections - multiple users can access the
attached server simultaneously! |
| Current CAT5-based solutions are limited to 50 to
150 feet between the switch and server. And
image quality degrades with distance. |
With Spider, there are virtually no cable limitations
and image quality doesn’t degrade with distance. |
| Switch-based solutions may require separate
KVM and serial dongles and/or external power
supplies |
Spider is a completely integrated IP-based KVM
switch that does not require an external power
supply. |
Conclusion
The need for real-time information and online connectivity is at its greatest. With many
organizations’s network infrastructure spread across corporate campuses, among cities
and around the globe, there is a critical market need for the next-generation KVM over IP
solution that is specifically designed to meet the needs of the distributed IT environment.
The distribution of interconnected resources requires a secure IP-based KVM
management strategy that guarantees simple, non-invasive, flexible, fault-tolerant,
scalable and cost-effective access… from anywhere, at any time.
When considering a KVM over IP solution, organizations with a distributed IT
environment should look for solutions that increase network reliability, improve
productivity and reduce hardware/software and maintenance costs. For maintaining 100%
network uptime, guaranteed non-blocked access to mission-critical servers is a
fundamental requirement from a KVM over IP solution. It also delivers a lower cost per
remote user.
To further lower total cost of ownership, built-in Ethernet switching technology, serverpowered
design and a browser-based interface that does not require any special client
software are key features. Finally, scalability and flexibility in a “zero-U” form factor for
cost-effectively adding additional servers and/or remote users is an important element for
consideration in a distributed IT environment.