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Exploding Data Center Operations in the Middle East: ManageEngine Simplifies Data Center Remote Access
Published Dec 11, 2013
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Increased adoption of cloud computing and virtualization has resulted in an explosion in data center operations across the globe. With increasing reliance on IT, data center operations in the Middle Eastern Countries are witnessing rapid growth. IT analysts have estimated that Middle East, along with Europe and Africa accounts for second largest market for Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) solutions.
Data Center administrators in IT organizations face multiple challenges involving a variety of factors. With data center operations becoming complex, administrators are in search of right solutions to manage their data centers. While ensuring the performance and utilization of resources require constant attention, ensuring data security nowadays stays top on the agenda of IT Managers.
Data centers are normally located in strategic sites due to considerations such as physical security, climatic conditions, environmental factors, availability of telecommunication and networking facilities and numerous other factors. As it is neither feasible nor desirable to keep the IT workforce at data center locations onsite, organizations prefer remote access to IT resources.
In a mid-sized company, typically, an administrator needs to connect to data center resources about 50 times during a shift. They need to respond to various requests requiring access to data center resources as quickly as possible.
Commonly performed tasks include server related operations like deploying a new application/libraries in servers, changing the factory default settings of applications running in machines, restarting an application, changing the settings of a server in production, changing security configurations, analyzing logs, troubleshooting when a server goes down; network devices related tasks such as changing firewall settings, analyzing the traffic flow in switches, reviewing device configurations, firmware upgrade, installing patches, making changes to device configurations in response to security alerts from device vendors, changes in access control lists of devices and in emergency situations like network outage, carrying out corrective action to get the network/device up and running and various other tasks on Power Distribution Units (PDU).
Typically, data centers limit direct access to remote devices via SSH and Telnet connections due to security reasons and network segmentation. Instead, data center admins working remotely must first connect to a landing server and then "hop" to the target system. In some cases, admins must make multiple hops before ultimately connecting to the target devices. At each step of the remote access process - from the initial landing server to each subsequent hop and the target device - the admin must provide the username and password as well as know the IP address of the landing server.
When a problem hits, admins often end up struggling to trace the connected equipment, the IP addresses, usernames and passwords. Credentials of data center resources are kept in text-files, excel sheets etc. and are insecurely handled.
“This traditional remote access management of the data center can be cumbersome and time consuming, said Balasubramanian Venkatramani, Marketing Manager, IT Security Solutions at ManageEngine. “Password Manager Pro, the privileged password management software from ManageEngine, which doubles up as data center remotes access management solution centralizes the management of all those credentials and access controls, so users are spared the burden of authenticating themselves at each stage of a remote access.”
Instead of requiring users to authenticate themselves at every hop and then again when they reach the remote device, Password Manager Pro handles all login and authentication steps automatically, giving admins one-click access to their remote data center resources, he added. This results in making data center remote access several times faster helping achieve increased operational efficiency and productivity.
Password Manager Pro consolidates multi-stage logins into a single click
Administrators can configure landing servers and their login credentials and then associate them with the resources being managed by Password Manager Pro. In turn, admins can launch a one-click connection with the remote resources without worrying about the intermediate hops. While the admin experiences a direct connection, Password Manager Pro automatically executes all of the intermediate hops in the background, establishing a connection with each landing server and finally with the remote resource.
In addition to gaining remote access, administrators can also use the landing server configuration in Password Manager Pro to reset passwords of data center equipment that are multiple hops away. Admins can change passwords as well as verify that passwords stored in Password Manager Pro are the same as those associated with the resources and with the remote access.
With Password Manager Pro, there is no direct connectivity between the admin’s device and remote host. The connection will always be tunneled through the Password Manager Pro server. Similarly, the passwords needed to establish remote sessions do not need to be available at the user’s browser. These mechanisms combine to establish highly secure, extremely simple remote access.
Beyond Remote Access
Password Manager Pro also facilitates video recording of the privileged sessions launched from Password Manager Pro. The recordings can be archived and played back to support forensic audits and let enterprises monitor all actions performed by privileged accounts during privileged sessions.
Session recording caters to the audit and compliance requirements of organizations that mandate proactive monitoring of activities. Administrators can readily answer questions regarding the 'who,' 'what' and 'when' of privileged access. In addition, administrators may also terminate sessions in real time if any suspicious activity is found, giving admins complete control over privileged sessions.
Posted by
VMD - [Virtual Marketing Department]
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