Avocent seeks to help companies find remote control

Avocent this week has begun shipping a version of its digital KVM switch designed to help IT administrators keep an eye on servers and serial devices from across IP wide-area nets.

The DSR1021 extends Avocent's line to remote offices and beyond the data center, where the company's products are used to monitor multiple servers and other systems from a single console.

While some Avocent customers have force-fit the vendor's data center products into remote offices, the new appliance is designed and priced especially for remote office use. At $1,750 it costs about half of Avocent's lowest-end data center device. The new product, which had been in the works for about 9 months, provides eight connections to routers and other devices at remote locations.

The DSR1021 can be used to check for problems as well as power systems up or down.  An enhanced version of Avocent's DSView software enables control of the KVM switch to be synched up with a company's existing security management so that only those individuals with permission to remote devices are allowed access. Avocent's remote and data center KVM switches can be controlled using the same software, company officials say.

C.C. Fridlin, a product marketing manager at Avocent, says the boxes offer advantages over remote control software, which runs on the servers being monitored remotely and assumes that the operating system and other server software is up and running. He adds the appliances are more flexible than card-based remote control products, which only give a view into the boxes they plug into.