The Planet
Remote KVM-over-IP Keeps The Planet Spinning
As companies grow, expand, and move their IT infrastructures into a secure, highly available hosted environment, it is important they have handson access to manage and operate their dedicated servers. Historically, most customers have limited access to servers, relying instead on data center staff to assist with service issues. With KVM (keyboard/video/mouse) solutions, they have full application-level support, with access to software and applications, relying on The Planet to manage the hardware and network.
KVM-over-IP has proven to be a highly 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.
Server Management
THE CHALLENGE: THE NEED FOR COST-EFFECTIVE, RELIABLE REMOTE SERVER MANAGEMENT
The Planet is the world’s leading provider of OnDemand IT Infrastructure solutions, hosting more than 22,000 small and medium-sized businesses and 3.1 million web sites worldwide. By offering the best choice of servers, software tools and world-class support, all backed by state-of-the-art facilities and unmatched network connectivity, this company helps turn information technology into a powerful competitive advantage that enables its customers to successfully grow their businesses.
Upon reviewing results from one of the company’s regularly scheduled customer feedback polls – an ongoing practice for continuous improvement – The Planet found one of the top requests from its customers was the ability to add remote KVM management capabilities to their servers.
Recognizing this important customer request, The Planet’s technology team began to investigate ways to quickly and affordably add this capability to the company’s product catalogue. They were soon presented with a major issue: in a hosting center environment loaded with different servers, it is difficult to separate individual customer ports to diagnose a problem over the network with regard to BIOS or other operating system issues. The Planet realized they needed a single-port solution that allowed them to buy “per port.” However, typical KVM solutions on the market were high-port count and too costly for customers.
THE SOLUTION: SECURELINX SPIDER FROM LANTRONIX OFFERS FLEXIBLE, SCALABLE AND AFFORDABLE REMOTE MANAGEMENT
After reviewing traditional KVM solutions that did not meet their specific needs, The Planet discovered Lantronix SecureLinx Spider™. In addition to providing the secure, KVM-over-IP access they needed, the Spider offered a flexible, scalable and affordable CAT5-based remote access solution in a cable-friendly, compact, “zero-foot print” package.
A single-port device, the Spider allowed The Planet to add remote IP users one server port at a time, which provided the company with the most cost-effective and scalable solution for its customers. This one feature alone made the Spider a stand-out winner for meeting the company’s challenges. Additionally, the VM solution provided hands-on access to remotely diagnose attached servers and perform a number of administrative tasks such as software installations from one central location.
“Lantronix was uniquely positioned to solve our customer’s needs and requirements,” said Aaron Conklin, product manager for The Planet. “By utilizing the Spider, we have been able to significantly scale the amount of equipment we can monitor at once, which provides our customers with the type of remote management solution they require to ensure their assets are constantly up and running. Overall, the Spider was an ideal fit.”
The Lantronix Spider Advantage
NON-BLOCKED ACCESS
each Spider allows one or more users to connect to the server providing simultaneous, nonblocked connections… multiple users can access the attached server simultaneously.
1-1 SERVER ACCESS
provides one of the lowest “cost-per-remote-user” available.
SCALE-AS-YOU-GROW CAPABILITY
with Lantronix SwitchPort+™ technology, administrators can cascade multiple Spiders together through a single Ethernet connection.
FLEXIBILITY
with a single-port solution users can add one port at a time keeping costs down.
NO CABLE LENGTH RESTRICTIONS
no additional cable drops are necessary and video image quality does not degrade with distance.
SERVER-POWERED DESIGN
attaches directly to the server and does not require an external power supply. Optional redundant power supply is available for mission-critical environments.
COMPACT, LIGHTWEIGHT FORM-FACTOR
offers space-saving, zero-footprint package and can be cable-supported directly or mounted to the back of the rack.
VIRTUAL MEDIA SUPPORT
allows local and remote disk images and files to be shared or installed on the remote host system over a TCP network connection.
THE RESULT: IMPROVED RESPONSIVENESS AND SERVICES TO INCREASE CUSTOMER BASE
Having already deployed Lantronix Spiders for its private rack customers, The Planet now offers this solution to all of its customers.
To date, The Planet’s customers are very pleased with the new ability for system administrators to remotely install additional software and virtually manage everything from the operating system up. Being able to add one port per server makes providing service for various types of customers the best financial arrangement possible.
What’s more, The Planet also selected SecureLinx Spider as an internal solution for managing its own infrastructure. The company now uses Spiders as an extension of its internal technical support staff, adding additional value to the company’s resources.