With Covid protocols and restrictions likely to be in place into the new year, data centre operators (DCOs) are minimising risk by reducing site access not just to overcome challenges, but to take advantage of this paradigm shift in working culture. DCOs are now increasingly turning to remote management solutions to monitor their data centres. This includes troubleshooting and resolving issues involving routers, switches and other devices.
With power densities going up and operating temperatures rising, DCOs are challenged to monitor the equipment with fewer personnel. As these challenges increase with the rise in complexities and increased demand, there is a need to improve the efficiency of managing and monitoring data centre infrastructure. This can be achieved with a connected data centre solution. A connected data centre system provides insights, data and actionable information.
Connected data centres and racks support the evolving digital demands for users and the business. Using a remote management solution in a connected data centre, enterprises can get answers to common data centre-related questions like: Is the rack environmentally safe for IT equipment? Are we overcooling the data centre? How much power is available, and how much are we using? What equipment is in each rack?
Where should we add new equipment? Are there any hotspots? Connected data centre solutions also offer web-based and application programming interface (API) access to configuration and deployment tools, which significantly reduce the requirement for data centre technicians to physically visit the data centre. For example, if a threshold on a particular equipment is breached, an enterprise can look at how this can be mitigated by shifting the load to other equipment or servers, without physically entering the data centre. Connected data centre solutions are vital in a world where IT equipment has to be managed remotely.
Fortunately, today, there are a number of tools and solutions that help in remote management. For example, serial console servers - terminal servers - can provide IT and network administrators secure access and control of serial devices from anywhere. Using these tools, it is possible for IT and network administrators to remotely access, monitor and manage data centre equipment with serial ports, such as routers, switches, servers, storage hardware, firewalls, power distribution units (PDUs) and uninterruptible power supplies.
From a remote location, administrators can troubleshoot, configure and reboot data centre devices. Similarly, KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) switches can be used to improve the capability to monitor data centres. Besides centralising access and control for servers, desktops and devices, a KVM switch can allow an IT staff to instantly reach the BIOS (basic input-output system) of an affected machine, even if they are miles away from the physical machine.
This is not possible with software-based remote access solutions, which do not offer the type of 'out-of-band access' function needed here. For example, even if the corporate network is down, IT personnel can still access, control and manage an organisation's servers in an emergency situation.
The data transmitted through KVM-over-IP (internet protocol) switches, in particular, is also encrypted using advanced techniques like AES (advanced encryption standard), FIPS ( Federal Information Processing Standard) 140-2 and smart card authentication, which makes administrators confident of their security posture.
A connected data centre can help enterprises remotely monitor their data centre for real-time power consumption, with real-time visibility into infrastructure and resources. This also helps enterprises be proactive and be alert to potential issues, which helps in using resources optimally and improving data centre performance. ",
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