Server management vendors last week at Interop introduced products designed to give systems administrators direct access to remote machines and ease management tasks.

Avocent and Cyclades separately unveiled products that will let customers take control of multiple remote systems from a centralized location. The products could eliminate the need for administrators to visit each machine for routine maintenance or troubleshooting tasks, and reduce management traffic on networks, industry watchers say.

"In the short term, products like this provide access to infrastructure when there is no connectivity over the network to a failed device, and down the road this type of technology will enable infrastructure managers to more securely access machines without using the production network," says Dennis Drogseth, a vice president with Enterprise Management Associates.

Virtual media

Avocent added support for virtual media to its DSView 3 management software and its DS Series KVM over IP switches. Virtual media is simulated media that performs the same function as a mass storage device, such as a hard drive, CD drive or USB, without physically being connected, the company says. The DS Series virtual media feature will let administrators remotely move local data to and from servers to perform a variety of tasks across heterogeneous platforms.

The software runs on a workstation or laptop and accesses remote servers using protocols such as Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI). IPMI, developed by Dell, HP, Intel and NEC, defines interfaces for use in monitoring the physical health of servers such as temperature, voltage, fans, power supplies and chassis. The goal is to enable easier management of large numbers of servers from multiple vendors.

Avocent says an administrator can use the DSR appliances through a USB 2.0 interface to upload fixes or patches directly to attached servers, or use the DSView 3 software-mapping menu to manage remote target servers.

"Avocent's move to using IPMI is a natural evolution of its KVM background," says Kelly Quinn, an analyst with IDC. "The platform-agnostic capabilities will offer customers more options than what they could get from the server vendors."

Pricing for DSView 3 software ranges from about $2,500 to $4,500.