Digi
CM Console Servers Product Applications
Examples:
Telecommunication Services Provider
Financial/Insurance Company
Customer:
Large telecommunication services provider
Location: North America
Problem: Implementing centralized server management
with secure remote access functionality
Solution: Digi CM 32
In the competitive world of telecommunications services, customer
service is critical and can be the key differentiator among providers.
Companies know that good customer service breeds customer loyalty,
which is important in an industry where consumers have many choices.
A leading provider of voice and data services to millions of customers
across North America needed to improve its response time in servicing
customer inquiries. The existing method for adding, modifying or
removing service provisions was a time-intensive manual process.
Customer service operators were required to answer telephone calls,
take customer requests, fill out work orders, and make changes to
the company database. For the Information Technology (IT) department,
managing this database involved accessing computer terminals connected
via terminal servers to mainframe computers in ten separate data
centers across the country. As the number of customers increased,
service provisioning became cumbersome, maintaining the data centers
was disjointed and the cost of phone center support was growing.
The IT team was tasked with finding a more efficient, cost-effective
way to support the customer service function of the company.
The Digi CM 32, a console server with 32 serial ports, was installed
in multiple locations to connect over 300 new servers. The Digi
CM 32 enables customers to access accounts online to view real-time
account information. Adding or modifying service is now a simple
click of a button on a web page. Operators and phone centers were
replaced with data centers where the order fulfillment process was
completely automated.
The Digi CM 32 also simplified the IT infrastructure. Managing the
servers is centralized to just two separate facilities, reducing
the administrative overhead previously required to maintain the
function. System administrators can now access any server, at any
time, from anywhere in the country, eliminating the need for onsite
personnel at each location. Most importantly, by eliminating telnet
access, the Digi CM 32 ensures all connections to the servers are
restricted to Secure Shell (SSH), protecting the company's network
infrastructure. Using secure logging, this company is now able to
centrally store log files from each server's console port for easy
troubleshooting.
Implementing the Digi CM 32 gave this company the flexibility they
were looking for to manage their database function, cut down on
IT costs and improve customer service.
Customer: Large financial/insurance company
Location: North America
Problem: Securely managing equipment in remote
data centers
Solution: Digi CM 32
One of the world's leading financial institutions needed to manage over 400 routers, switches and UNIX systems on its network. The equipment is located in a main data center and a backup data center that is located in another state. If a server or router goes down, it could mean a five-hour trip to drive to the site, diagnose and correct the problem, and return. This process cost the company time and money, and ultimately affected efficiency and productivity. This company needed to find a solution to increase network server uptime, reduce overall operating costs, and restrict access to authorized users only.
Twenty Digi CM 32 console servers were installed in the data center and back up data center. The Digi CM 32 provides centralized management and configuration of routers, switches and servers from anywhere on the corporate TCP/IP network, over the internet, or through dial-up modem connections, even if the device is unavailable through the network. This set-up eliminates the need for system administrators to travel to remote data centers, since instead of connecting directly to the router or server with a laptop or terminal, system administrators now connect to the Digi CM 32 via telnet or Secure Shell (SSH).
The console management solution improves administrators' response time to network problems in another key way as well. The Digi CM 32 provides message logs, which contain valuable troubleshooting information required to diagnose system issues. Without the port logging capabilities of the Dig CM 32, much of this information would be lost, or would be in many different locations, making the logs difficult to manage and access.
Finally, the Dig CM 32 also solves the challenge of managing different levels of access for users. It employs SSH v2 encryption to keep server access passwords safe from hackers and supports all popular SSH clients, as well as secure access from any Java-enabled browser. User access can be controlled on a port-by-port basis, thus meeting the company's requirements for multi-level access and security, while allowing the flexibility to easily change the user specifications when required.
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