Uplogix Bolsters Out-of-Band Management

Console management startup Uplogix at Interop in New York Sept. 18 continued to build out its out-of-band management appliances to deliver more management functions and extend its management to servers and applications as well as network devices.

Uplogix in Version 3.0 of its Envoy Network Resource Manager appliance jumped on the VOIP (voice over IP) management bandwagon by adding the ability to monitor the quality of voice calls placed on an IP network to and from a branch office.

"We added the ability in 3.0 to generate synthetic phone calls initiated on a regular basis, said Barry Cox, CEO of the Austin, Texas, company. "We create a baseline of IP telephony performance to the branch office and look at call quality metrics [on those synthetic voice transactions] to monitor call quality in individual branch offices."

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That ability builds on a previously released software module for the out-of-band management appliances that provides service-level verification for network service delivery. It uses synthetic Web and TCP/IP transactions to measure performance as an application traverses the entire network, Cox said.

"It really addresses a void our customers have. They want to measure and score call quality for branch users," he added. Unlike traditional network management tools that use SNMP, Telnet or RMON, the appliances are physically "tethered to those devices for a permanent management conduit" that remains available when existing network links go out of service, Cox said.

"Our solution can see through an outage and provide automated management traditional tools cant provide, he explained. It competes with out-of-band management tools from Cyclades and Avocent.

"Its an extra safety factor thrown in there. It plays to the idea that you want to have management at the remote site. For [enterprises] with critical distributed offices, it makes good sense to have that," said industry analyst Rich Ptak at Ptak, Noel & Associates in Amherst, N.H.

Cox asserted that the new release straddles a gap between out-of-band management and active management of remote computing resources from a central location thanks to a new architecture created in Version 3.0.

To read more about Uplogix, click here.

The appliance now provides a more diverse range of connectivity options to connect to the console port on remote routers, firewalls and switches. It provides not only serial port and Ethernet connections, but also includes satellite and Wi-Fi options for cellular data.

In addition, Version 3.0 extends monitoring and management functions to servers as well as network devices. It can now remotely monitor server processes and CPU utilization and perform password recovery and automated rebooting of servers. New servers supported include Red Hat Linux, Sun Microsystems Solaris, HP-UX, IBM AIX and Windows Server 2003.

The new release is available now; the appliances start at $2,800.

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