Open Source vendor Opengear released two new management products designed specifically for the toughest telecommunications environments. Opengear’s new CM4116-48V and CM4148-48V models enable telecommunications and network service providers to securely manage their mission critical servers, switches, routers, Vo-IP gateways and DSLAMs using one appliance. These management solutions provide secure authenticated remote access to the infrastructure, whether or not the main in-band network is operational.

Today, the majority of telecommunications offices use a variety of equipment and have wide range of remote management access methods. Most devices support a text serial console, others have a web console, while carrier-grade servers also have VNC and RDP graphical support and IPMI access to their service processors. Telecommunications hardware infrastructure is known for its high availability, however many modern devices run complex operating systems and applications that have the potential to become unstable or fail. Opengear’s robust console managers mitigate the potential for such a disaster.

The Secure Tunnelling feature, which is embedded in each CM4000 console server, provides text, web browser, RDP or VNC graphical sessions to remote equipment through SSH tunnels with strong authentication and encryption. This guarantees secure remote management of Ethernet attached devices or serial consoles on telco-grade equipment. The CM4000 provides secure access and logging of console text with e-mail alerts and SNMP traps for quick problem identification and resolution.

"The company’s new console servers were developed with a number leading telcos including China Telecom, NTT and KDDI whose mission was to enhance the productivity of their telecommunications assets while safeguarding against unplanned outages", said Tony Merenda CTO and co-founder of Opengear. "Our key telco partners acknowledge the need to consolidate text, web and graphical remote management of all their equipment in one secure remote management appliance that operates within their stable -48V DC power infrastructure".