Tablets being introduced in the data center

Tablets offer many of the same functions of PCs, but with the advantage of portability and convenience that makes them an extremely user-friendly option. However, tablets are not always the most powerful computing options out there. As a result, it's reasonable that you may be shocked to hear about tablets in the data center, but the mobile-focused world is starting to have an impact in the data center. According to a recent Lifehacker report, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center has begun using tablets to solve unique management challenges and improve data center efficiency and reliability.

Why turn to tablets?
Speaking at the recent Data Center World conference, Joseph Furmanski of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center explained that the organization genuinely strives for 100 percent uptime in its data center, not just four nines (99.99 percent) availability. The constant uptime is necessary to support electronic health record systems, but maintaining the kind of staff necessary to support 100 percent uptime is not easy, Lifehacker reported.

At as simple level, turning to tablets was a matter of becoming attractive to young IT workers. According to Lifehacker, Furmanski told audiences that using tablets is an attractive option because the user-friendly devices are familiar to many young people and they are an ideal option for simplifying many core data center management functions. However, the benefits don't just stem from cool gadgetry. Direct business benefits, such as policy compliance, have also been achieved by using tablets.

"People don't always follow paper documentation; they find ways to get around, or they think they know what to do so they don't use it," Furmanski explained in his presentation, according to the news source. "We had to first convince our management that we weren't just doing it to have fun. We showed them that our online documentation system was ineffective. In many cases, there's so much good documentation there that they can't get to the actual solution quickly."

The efficiency enabled by tablets can be especially clear when organizations consider console management in the data center.

Using console management alongside mobile devices
Console server systems enable IT managers to control almost any facet of the data center through central applications. This allows for remote data center management functionality, making it easier for IT leaders to quickly respond to problems and maintain uptime. When coupled with mobile device solutions, console management creates an incredibly flexible data center administration architecture that can lead to major operational gains.

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.