Avocent aims to ease deep server management

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These days, there is so much focus on how servers are managed. Some of the most pressing areas of management include the power demands and heat output of the systems. But there is also the desire to simply make the monitoring and management of a growing number of servers easier.

While most systems administrators rely on big software packages to get a handle on server function and performance, there is a capability built right into most servers today that provides insight into the basic functioning of a system.

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Editor's Note: Check out Networkworld.com's latest feature, Microsoft Subnet. Every day, our editors scour the Web to collect the most interesting and important Microsoft-related blogs, news, discussion forums and security alerts and present them to you on one page. At Microsoft Subnet, readers can create their own blogs and comment on the Microsoft news and issues of the day.

These days, there is so much focus on how servers are managed. Some of the most pressing areas of management include the power demands and heat output of the systems. But there is also the desire to simply make the monitoring and management of a growing number of servers easier.

While most systems administrators rely on big software packages to get a handle on server function and performance, there is a capability built right into most servers today that provides insight into the basic functioning of a system.

While often overlooked, service processors can play an important role in a data center-wide management strategy. The service processor is a piece of hardware that is embedded into a server and uses IPMI or proprietary technologies to give administrators remote management capabilities over server functions such as power control, console access, virtual media, server hardware monitoring and alerts.

“The service processors vary from type to type, but the common capability across all the service processor types is the ability to do remote power control – to power on and off or cycle the servers – as well as to have serial over the LAN, which is the ability to see the serial console of a server over the network,” says Ivan Passos, director of product management at Avocent. “Because the service processor is embedded into the server, you can see information about server health in real time: information such as the temperature of the server, whether the chassis of the server has been open or not, voltage levels, power consumption and that kind of thing.”

This week, Avocent is introducing two products aimed at making it easier for organizations to leverage the capabilities within their systems’ service processors. MergePoint 5224 and 5240 are gateway appliances that enable administrators to manage different types of service processors in different types of servers from a single console.

One of the biggest benefits of the new MergePoint products is the fact that service processors are hooked into the gateway appliances and not directly into the Ethernet network. Most service processors require a dedicated Ethernet port, making the deployment costly - $200 to $1,000 per year, per port, says Passos.

“What these new products allow you to do is not use that general Ethernet infrastructure to make those service processors available to IT management,” Passos says. “Basically, you connect all the service processors into the MergePoint 5224 and 5240 and you access this gateway appliance and address your entire service processor infrastructure.”

The gateway also improves security since it sits in front of the service processors, Passos says.

The MergePoint 5224 and 5240 are available now and priced starting at just under $3,000 and just under $4,000, respectively.

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