Console management can help with data center complexity

I remember the first time I saw a picture of a large enterprise data center. My first thought was something along the lines, "Human beings can actually work there every day and not go crazy?" Data centers used to beextremely dull, boring and simple-looking places. All you would see in a quick view of most data centers was a huge concrete building and row-after-rowof storage cabinets. Seriously, that's all that was there. If you looked into those cabinets things may have gotten more interesting, but overall, the data center used to be a fairly static and simple place, even if the technologies required plenty of specialty skills. The operative word here is used to be.

Now data center managers have to deal with some combination of cloud computing, virtualization, hot and cold aisles, free cooling, water cooling, exhaust systems that take heat from servers and use them to create a greenhouse or heat pools (yes, these things actually exist). I've even heard whispers of data centers that float in the ocean and use the movement of waves and the tide to create power. The data center is nothing like it used to be, even in places where it may look the same, and complexity is becoming a major problem.

Dealing with data center complexity
One of the greatest challenges in contemporary data centers is that they are not always located where IT is. In some cases, IT managers work in the office to support day-to-day operations but also have to provide oversight for the data center. In others, each branch needs its own data center but the majority of the IT workers are located in a single location. ​Colocation and other solutions can also add to this problem. This type of logistical complexity can further complicate the data center equation. Console servers can help.

Console management solutions enable IT leaders to adjust the data center configuration remotely or from a central panel within a facility. If a hot spot is developing in a data center and an emergency response is needed, an IT manager does not need to travel through three biometric security doors and walk hundreds of yards, hopefully getting to servers in time to make changes before they overheat. Instead, the console management system can be used to adjust systems. Similarly, this can be done from any location with access to the network, enabling IT to overcome many core complexity problems in the easiest way possible.

Perle's wide range of 1 to 48 port Perle Console Servers provide data center managers and network administrators with secure remote management of any device with a serial console port. Plus, they are the only truly fault tolerant Console Servers on the market with the advanced security functionality needed to easily perform secure remote data center management and out-of-band management of IT assets from anywhere in the world.