CONTACT US
1-844-4ZPE-SYS
ZPE CLOUD
Request a Quote
Schedule a Demo

Providing Out-of-Band Connectivity to Mission-Critical IT Resources

Network Resilience Doesn’t Mean What it Did 20 Years Ago

by | Jan 25, 2024 | Application Hosting, Data Center Management, DevOps, Edge Computing, Improve Network Security, Micro-segmentation, Minimize Impact of Disruptions, NetDevOps, Network Automation, Remote Network Management, Virtualization, Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP), Zero Trust Security

Network resilience requirements have changed

Enterprise networks are like air. When they’re running smoothly, it’s easy to take them for granted, as business users and customers are able to go about their normal activities. But when customer service reps are suddenly cut off from their ticketing system, or family movie night turns into a game of “Is it my router, or the network?”, everyone notices. This is why network resilience is critical.

But, what exactly does resilience mean today? Let’s find out by looking at some recent real-world examples, the history of network architectures, and why network resilience doesn’t mean what it did 20 years ago.

Why does network resilience matter?

There’s no shortage of real-world examples showing why network resilience matters. The takeaway is that network resilience is directly tied to business, which means that it impacts revenue, costs, and risks. Here is a brief list of resilience-related incidents that occurred in 2023 alone:

  • FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) – An overworked contractor unintentionally deleted files, which delayed flights nationwide for an entire day.
  • Southwest Airlines – A firewall configuration change caused 16,000 flight cancellations and cost the company about $1 billion.
  • MOVEit FTP exploit – Thousands of global organizations fell victim to a MOVEit vulnerability, which allowed attackers to steal personal data for millions.
  • MGM Resorts – A human exploit and lack of recovery systems let an attack persist for weeks, causing millions in losses per day.
  • Ragnar Locker attacks – Several large organizations were locked out of IT systems for days, which slowed or halted customer operations worldwide.

What does network resilience mean?

Based on the examples above, it might seem that network resilience could mean different things. It might mean having backups of golden configs that you could easily restore in case of a mistake. It might mean beefing up your security and/or replacing outdated systems. It might mean having recovery processes in place.

So, which is it?

The answer is, it’s all of these and more.

Donald Firesmith (Carnegie Mellon) defines resilience this way: “A system is resilient if it continues to carry out its mission in the face of adversity (i.e., if it provides required capabilities despite excessive stresses that can cause disruptions).”

Network resilience means having a network that continues to serve its essential functions despite adversity. Adversity can stem from human error, system outages, cyberattacks, and even natural disasters that threaten to degrade or completely halt normal network operations. Achieving network resilience requires the ability to quickly address issues ranging from device failures and misconfigurations, to full-blown ISP outages and ransomware attacks.

The problem is, this is now much more difficult than it used to be.

How did network resilience become so complicated?

Twenty years ago, IT teams managed a centralized architecture. The data center was able to serve end-users and customers with the minimal services they needed. Being “constantly connected” wasn’t a concern for most people. For the business, achieving resilience was as simple as going on-site or remoting-in via serial console to fix issues at the data center.

Network architecture showing simplicity of data center connected via MPLS to branch office

Then in the mid-2000s, the advent of the cloud changed everything. Infrastructure, data, and computing became decentralized into a distributed mix of on-prem and cloud solutions. Users could connect from anywhere, and on-demand services allowed people to be plugged in around-the-clock. Services for work, school, and entertainment could be delivered anytime, no matter where users were.

Network architecture showing complexity of data center, CDN, remote user, branch office, all connected via many paths

Behind the scenes, this explosion of architecture created three problems for achieving network resilience, which a simple serial could no longer fix:

Too Much Work

Infrastructure, data, and computing are widely distributed. Systems inevitably break and require work, but teams don’t have the staff to keep up.

Too Much Complexity

Pairing cloud and box-based stacks creates complex networks. Teams leave systems outdated, because they don’t want to break this delicate architecture.

Too Much Risk

Unpatched, outdated systems are prime targets for packaged attacks that move at machine speed. Defense requires recovery tools that teams don’t have.

Enabling businesses to be resilient in the modern age requires an approach that’s different than simply deploying a serial console for remote troubleshooting. Gen 1 and 2 serial consoles, which have dominated the market for 20 years, were designed to solve basic issues by offering limited remote access and some automation. The problem is, these still leave teams lacking the confidence to answer questions like:

  • “How can we guarantee access to fix stuff that breaks, without rolling trucks?”
  • “Can we automate change management, without fear of breaking the network?”
  • “Attacks are inevitable — How do we stop hackers from cutting off our access?”

Hyperscalers, Internet Service Providers, Big Tech, and even the military have a resilience model that they’ve proven over the last decade. Their approach involves fully isolating command and control from data and user environments. This allows them to not only gain low-level remote access to maintain and fix systems, but also to “defend the hill” and maintain control if systems are compromised or destroyed.

This approach uses something called Isolated Management Infrastructure (IMI).

Isolated Management Infrastructure is the best practice for network resilience

Isolated Management Infrastructure is the practice of creating a management network that is completely separate from the production network. Most IT teams are familiar with out-of-band management as this network; IMI, however, provides many capabilities that can’t be hosted on a traditional serial console or OOB network. And with increasing vulnerabilities, CISA issued a binding directive specifically calling for organizations to implement IMI.

Isolated Management Infrastructure using Gen 3 serial consoles, like ZPE Systems’ Nodegrid devices, provides more than simple remote access and automation. Similar to a proper out-of-band network, IMI is completely isolated from production assets. This means there are no dependencies on production devices or connections, and management interfaces are not exposed to the internet or production gear. In the event of an outage or attack, teams retain management access, and this is just the beginning of the benefits of having IMI.

A network architecture diagram showing Isolated Management Infrastructure next to production infrastructure

IMI includes more than nine functions that are required for teams to fully service their production assets. These include:

  • Low-level access to all management interfaces, including serial, Ethernet, USB, IPMI, and others, to guarantee remote access to the entire environment
  • Open, edge-native automation to ensure services can continue operating in the event of outages or change errors
  • Computing, storage, and jumpbox capabilities that can natively host the apps and tools to deploy an IRE, to ensure fast, effective recovery from attacks

Get the guide to build IMI

ZPE Systems has worked alongside Big Tech to fulfill their requirements for IMI. In doing so, we created the Network Automation blueprint as a technical guide to help any organization build their own Isolated Management Infrastructure. Download the blueprint now to get started.

Download blueprint

IT Infrastructure Management Best Practices

by | Jan 16, 2024 | Consolidation, Data Center Management, Data Center Resilience, Failover Connectivity, Increase Productivity, Minimize Impact of Disruptions, NetDevOps, NetDevOps Transformation, Network Automation, Out of Band Management, Remote Network Management, Security Service Edge (SSE), Vendor Neutral Platform, Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP), Zero Trust Security

A small team uses IT infrastructure management best practices to manage an enterprise network

A single hour of downtime costs organizations more than $300,000 in lost business, making network and service reliability critical to revenue. The biggest challenge facing IT infrastructure teams is ensuring network resilience, which is the ability to continue operating and delivering services during equipment failures, ransomware attacks, and other emergencies. This guide discusses IT infrastructure management best practices for creating and maintaining more resilient enterprise networks.
.

What is IT infrastructure management? It’s a collection of all the workflows involved in deploying and maintaining an organization’s network infrastructure. 

IT infrastructure management best practices

The following IT infrastructure management best practices help improve network resilience while streamlining operations. Click the links on the left for a more detailed look at the technologies and processes involved with each.

Isolated Management Infrastructure (IMI)

• Protects management interfaces in case attackers hack the production network

• Ensures continuous access using OOB (out-of-band) management

• Provides a safe environment to fight through and recover from ransomware

Network and Infrastructure Automation

• Reduces the risk of human error in network configurations and workflows

• Enables faster deployments so new business sites generate revenue sooner

• Accelerates recovery by automating device provisioning and deployment

• Allows small IT infrastructure teams to effectively manage enterprise networks

Vendor-Neutral Platforms

• Reduces technical debt by allowing the use of familiar tools

• Extends OOB, automation, AIOps, etc. to legacy/mixed-vendor infrastructure

• Consolidates network infrastructure to reduce complexity and human error

• Eliminates device sprawl and the need to sacrifice features

AIOps

• Improves security detection to defend against novel attacks

• Provides insights and recommendations to improve network health for a better end-user experience

• Accelerates incident resolution with automatic triaging and root-cause analysis (RCA)

Isolated management infrastructure (IMI)

Management interfaces provide the crucial path to monitoring and controlling critical infrastructure, like servers and switches, as well as crown-jewel digital assets like intellectual property (IP). If management interfaces are exposed to the internet or rely on the production network, attackers can easily hijack your critical infrastructure, access valuable resources, and take down the entire network. This is why CISA released a binding directive that instructs organizations to move management interfaces to a separate network, a practice known as isolated management infrastructure (IMI).

The best practice for building an IMI is to use Gen 3 out-of-band (OOB) serial consoles, which unify the management of all connected devices and ensure continuous remote access via alternative network interfaces (such as 4G/5G cellular). OOB management gives IT teams a lifeline to troubleshoot and recover remote infrastructure during equipment failures and outages on the production network. The key is to ensure that OOB serial consoles are fully isolated from production and can run the applications, tools, and services needed to fight through a ransomware attack or outage without taking critical infrastructure offline for extended periods. This essentially allows you to instantly create a virtual War Room for coordinated recovery efforts to get you back online in a matter of hours instead of days or weeks. A diagram showing a multi-layered isolated management infrastructure. An IMI using out-of-band serial consoles also provides a safe environment to recover from ransomware attacks. The pervasive nature of ransomware and its tendency to re-infect cleaned systems mean it can take companies between 1 and 6 months to fully recover from an attack, with costs and revenue losses mounting with every day of downtime. The best practice is to use OOB serial consoles to create an isolated recovery environment (IRE) where teams can restore and rebuild without risking reinfection.
.

Network and infrastructure automation

As enterprise network architectures grow more complex to support technologies like microservices applications, edge computing, and artificial intelligence, teams find it increasingly difficult to manually monitor and manage all the moving parts. Complexity increases the risk of configuration mistakes, which cause up to 35% of cybersecurity incidents. Network and infrastructure automation handles many tedious, repetitive tasks prone to human error, improving resilience and giving admins more time to focus on revenue-generating projects.

Additionally, automated device provisioning tools like zero-touch provisioning (ZTP) and configuration management tools like RedHat Ansible make it easier for teams to recover critical infrastructure after a failure or attack. Network and infrastructure automation help organizations reduce the duration of outages and allow small IT infrastructure teams to manage large enterprise networks effectively, improving resilience and reducing costs.

For an in-depth look at network and infrastructure automation, read the Best Network Automation Tools and What to Use Them For

Vendor-neutral platforms

Most enterprise networks bring together devices and solutions from many providers, and they often don’t interoperate easily. This box-based approach creates vendor lock-in and technical debt by preventing admins from using the tools or scripting languages they’re familiar with, and it makes a fragmented, complex architecture of management solutions that are difficult to operate efficiently. Organizations also end up compromising on features, ending up with a lot of stuff they don’t need and too little of what they do need.

A vendor-neutral IT infrastructure management platform allows teams to unify all their workflows and solutions. It integrates your administrators’ favorite tools to reduce technical debt and provides a centralized place to deploy, orchestrate, and monitor the entire network. It also extends technologies like OOB, automation, and AIOps to otherwise unsupported legacy and mixed-vendor solutions. Such a platform is revolutionary in the same way smartphones were – instead of needing a separate calculator, watch, pager, phone, etc., everything was combined in a single device. A vendor-neutral management platform allows you to run all the apps, services, and tools you need without buying a bunch of extra hardware. It’s a crucial IT infrastructure management best practice for resilience because it consolidates and unifies network architectures to reduce complexity and prevent human error.

Learn more about the benefits of a vendor-neutral IT infrastructure management platform by reading How To Ensure Network Scalability, Reliability, and Security With a Single Platform

AIOps

AIOps applies artificial intelligence technologies to IT operations to maximize resilience and efficiency. Some AIOps use cases include:

  • Security detection: AIOps security monitoring solutions are better at catching novel attacks (those using methods never encountered or documented before) than traditional, signature-based detection methods that rely on a database of known attack vectors.
  • Data analysis: AIOps can analyze all the gigabytes of logs generated by network infrastructure and provide health visualizations and recommendations for preventing potential issues or optimizing performance.
  • Root-cause analysis (RCA): Ingesting infrastructure logs allows AIOps to identify problems on the network, perform root-cause analysis to determine the source of the issues, and create & prioritize service incidents to accelerate remediation.

AIOps is often thought of as “intelligent automation” because, while most automation follows a predetermined script or playbook of actions, AIOps can make decisions on-the-fly in response to analyzed data. AIOps and automation work together to reduce management complexity and improve network resilience.

Want to find out more about using AIOps and automation to create a more resilient network? Read Using AIOps and Machine Learning To Manage Automated Network Infrastructure

IT infrastructure management best practices for maximum resilience

Network resilience is one of the top IT infrastructure management challenges facing modern enterprises. These IT infrastructure management best practices ensure resilience by isolating management infrastructure from attackers, reducing the risk of human error during configurations and other tedious workflows, breaking vendor lock-in to decrease network complexity, and applying artificial intelligence to the defense and maintenance of critical infrastructure.

Need help getting started with these practices and technologies? ZPE Systems can help simplify IT infrastructure management with the vendor-neutral Nodegrid platform. Nodegrid’s OOB serial consoles and integrated branch routers allow you to build an isolated management infrastructure that supports your choice of third-party solutions for automation, AIOps, and more.

Want to learn how to make IT infrastructure management easier with Nodegrid?

To learn more about implementing IT infrastructure management best practices for resilience with Nodegrid, download our Network Automation Blueprint. 

Request a Demo

Collaboration in DevOps: Strategies and Best Practices

by | Jan 9, 2024 | Consolidation, Data Center Management, Data Center Resilience, DevOps, Failover Connectivity, Improve Network Security, Increase Productivity, Minimize Impact of Disruptions, NetDevOps, NetDevOps Transformation, Network Automation, Out of Band Management, Remote Network Management, Vendor Neutral Platform, Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP), Zero Trust Security

Collaboration in DevOps is illustrated by two team members working together in front of the DevOps infinity logo.
The DevOps methodology combines the software development and IT operations teams into a highly collaborative unit. In a DevOps environment, team members work simultaneously on the same code base, using automation and source control to accelerate releases. The transformation from a traditional, siloed organizational structure to a streamlined, fast-paced DevOps company is rewarding yet challenging. That’s why it’s important to have the right strategy, and in this guide to collaboration in DevOps, you’ll discover tips and best practices for a smooth transition.

Collaboration in DevOps: Strategies and best practices

A successful DevOps implementation results in a tightly interwoven team of software and infrastructure specialists working together to release high-quality applications as quickly as possible. This transition tends to be easier for developers, who are already used to working with software code, source control tools, and automation. Infrastructure teams, on the other hand, sometimes struggle to work at the velocity needed to support DevOps software projects and lack experience with automation technologies, causing a lot of frustration and delaying DevOps initiatives. The following strategies and best practices will help bring Dev and Ops together while minimizing friction.

Turn infrastructure and network configurations into software code

Infrastructure and network teams can’t keep up with the velocity of DevOps software development if they’re manually configuring, deploying, and troubleshooting resources using the GUI (graphical user interface) or CLI (command line interface). The best practice in a DevOps environment is to use software abstraction to turn all configurations and networking logic into code.

Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools allow teams to write configurations as software code that provisions new resources automatically with the click of a button. IaC configurations can be executed as often as needed to deploy DevOps infrastructure very rapidly and at a large scale.

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) 

Software-defined networking (SDN) and Software-defined wide-area networking (SD-WAN) use software abstraction layers to manage networking logic and workflows. SDN allows networking teams to control, monitor, and troubleshoot very large and complex network architectures from a centralized platform while using automation to optimize performance and prevent downtime.
Software abstraction helps accelerate resource provisioning, reducing delays and friction between Dev and Ops. It can also be used to bring networking teams into the DevOps fold with automated, software-defined networks, creating what’s known as a NetDevOps environment.

Use common, centralized tools for software source control

Collaboration in DevOps means a whole team of developers or sysadmins may work on the same code base simultaneously. This is highly efficient — but risky. Development teams have used software source control tools like GitHub for years to track and manage code changes and prevent overwriting each other’s work. In a DevOps organization using IaC and SDN, the best practice is to incorporate infrastructure and network code into the same source control system used for software code.

Managing infrastructure configurations using a tool like GitHub ensures that sysadmins can’t make unauthorized changes to critical resources. For example, administrators initiate many ransomware attacks and other major outages by directly changing infrastructure configurations without testing or approval. This happened in a high-profile MGM cyberattack when an IT staff member fell victim to social engineering and granted elevated Okta privileges to an attacker without having to get approval from a second pair of eyes.

Using DevOps source control, all infrastructure changes must be reviewed and approved by a second party in the IT department to ensure they don’t introduce vulnerabilities or malicious code into production. Sysadmins can work quickly and creatively, knowing there’s a safety net to catch mistakes, reducing Ops delays, and fostering a more collaborative environment.

Consolidate and integrate DevOps tools with a vendor-neutral platform

An enterprise DevOps deployment usually involves dozens – if not hundreds – of different tools to automate and streamline the many workflows involved in a software development project. Having so many individual DevOps tools deployed around the enterprise increases the management complexity, which can have the following consequences.

  • Human error – The harder it is to stay on top of patch releases, security bulletins, and monitoring logs, the more likely it is that an issue will slip between the cracks until it causes an outage or breach.
  • Security complexity – Every additional DevOps tool added to the architecture makes integrating and implementing a consistent security model more complex and challenging, increasing the risk of coverage gaps.
  • Spiraling costs – With many different solutions handling individual workflows around the enterprise, the likelihood of buying redundant services or paying for unneeded features increases, which can impact ROI.
  • Reduced efficiency – DevOps aims to increase operational efficiency, but having to work across so many disparate tools can slow teams down, especially when those tools don’t interoperate.

The best practice is consolidating your DevOps tools with a centralized, vendor-neutral platform. For example, the Nodegrid Services Delivery Platform from ZPE Systems can host and integrate 3rd-party DevOps tools, unifying them under a single management umbrella. Nodegrid gives IT teams single-pane-of-glass control over the entire DevOps architecture, including the underlying network infrastructure, which reduces management complexity, increases efficiency, and improves ROI.

Maximize DevOps success

DevOps collaboration can improve operational efficiency and allow companies to release software at the velocity required to stay competitive in the market. Using software abstraction, centralized source code control, and vendor-neutral management platforms reduces friction on your DevOps journey. The best practice is to unify your DevOps environment with a vendor-neutral platform like Nodegrid to maximize control, cost-effectiveness, and productivity.

Want to Simplify collaboration in DevOps with the Nodegrid platform?

Reach out to ZPE Systems today to learn more about how the Nodegrid Services Delivery Platform can help you simplify collaboration in DevOps.

 

Contact Us

Terminal Servers: Uses, Benefits, and Examples

by | Jan 5, 2024 | Consolidation, Data Center Management, Data Center Resilience, Failover Connectivity, Increase Productivity, Minimize Impact of Disruptions, NetDevOps, NetDevOps Transformation, Network Automation, Out of Band Management, Remote Network Management, Security Service Edge (SSE), Vendor Neutral Platform, Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP), Zero Trust Security

NSCStack
Terminal servers are network management devices providing remote access to and control over remote infrastructure. They typically connect to infrastructure devices via serial ports (hence their alternate names, serial consoles, console servers, serial console routers, or serial switches). IT teams use terminal servers to consolidate remote device management and create an out-of-band (OOB) control plane for remote network infrastructure. Terminal servers offer several benefits over other remote management solutions, such as better performance, resilience, and security. This guide answers all your questions about terminal servers, discussing their uses and benefits before describing what to look for in the best terminal server solution.

Table of Contents
    1. What is a terminal server?
    2. What are the uses for terminal servers?
    3. What are the benefits of terminal servers?
    4. Examples of terminal servers
    5. What to look for in the best terminal server
    6. Why choose Nodegrid terminal servers?

What is a terminal server?

A terminal server is a networking device used to manage other equipment. It directly connects to servers, switches, routers, and other equipment using management ports, which are typically (but not always) serial ports. Network administrators remotely access the terminal server and use it to manage all connected devices in the data center rack or branch where it’s installed.

What are the uses for terminal servers?

Network teams use terminal servers for two primary functions: remote infrastructure management consolidation and out-of-band management.

  1. Terminal servers unify management for all connected devices, so administrators don’t need to log in to each separate solution individually. Terminal servers save significant time and effort, which reduces the risk of fatigue and human error that could take down the network.
  2. Terminal servers provide remote out-of-band (OOB) management, creating a separate, isolated network dedicated to infrastructure management and troubleshooting. OOB allows administrators to troubleshoot and recover remote infrastructure during equipment failures, network outages, and ransomware attacks.

Learn more about using OOB terminal servers to recover from ransomware attacks by reading How to Build an Isolated Recovery Environment (IRE).

What are the benefits of terminal servers?

There are other ways to gain remote OOB management access to remote infrastructure, such as using Intel NUC jump boxes. Despite this, terminal servers are the better option for OOB management because they offer benefits including:

The benefits of terminal servers

Centralized management

Remote recovery

Even with a jump box, administrators typically must access the CLI of each infrastructure solution individually. Each jump box is also separately managed and accessed. A terminal server provides a single management platform to access and control all connected devices. That management platform works across all terminal servers from the same vendor, allowing teams to monitor and manage infrastructure across all remote sites from a single portal. 

When a jump box crashes or loses network access, there’s usually no way to recover it remotely, necessitating costly and time-consuming truck rolls before diagnostics can even begin. Terminal servers use OOB connection options like 5G/4G LTE to ensure continuous access to remote infrastructure even during major network outages. Out-of-band management gives remote teams a lifeline to troubleshoot, rebuild, and recover infrastructure fast.

Improved performance

Stronger security

Network and infrastructure management workflows can use a lot of bandwidth, especially when organizations use automation tools and orchestration platforms, potentially impacting end-user performance. Terminal servers create a dedicated OOB control plane where teams can execute as many resource-intensive automation workflows as needed without taking bandwidth away from production applications and users. 

Jump boxes often lack the security features and oversight of other enterprise network resources, which makes them vulnerable to exploitation by malicious actors. Terminal servers are secured by onboard hardware Roots of Trust (e.g., TPM), receive patches from the vendor like other enterprise-grade solutions, and can be onboarded with cybersecurity monitoring tools and Zero Trust security policies to defend the management network. 

Examples of terminal servers

Examples of popular terminal server solutions include the Opengear CM8100, the Avocent ACS8000, and the Nodegrid Serial Console Plus. The Opengear and Avocent solutions are second-generation, or Gen 2, terminal servers, which means they provide some automation support but suffer from vendor lock-in. The Nodegrid solution is the only Gen 3 terminal server, offering unlimited integration support for 3rd-party automation, security, SD-WAN, and more.

What to look for in the best terminal server

Terminal servers have evolved, so there is a wide range of options with varying capabilities and features. Some key characteristics of the best terminal server include:

  • 5G/4G LTE and Wi-Fi options for out-of-band access and network failover
  • Support for legacy devices without costly adapters or complicated configuration tweaks
  • Advanced authentication support, including two-factor authentication (2FA) and SAML 2.0
  • Robust onboard hardware security features like a self-encrypted SSD and UEFI Secure Boot
  • An open, Linux-based OS that supports Guest OS and Docker containers for third-party software
  • Support for zero-touch provisioning (ZTP), custom scripts, and third-party automation tools
  • A vendor-neutral, centralized management and orchestration platform for all connected solutions

These characteristics give organizations greater resilience, enabling them to continue operating and providing services in a degraded fashion while recovering from outages and ransomware. In addition, vendor-neutral support for legacy devices and third-party automation enables companies to scale their operations efficiently without costly upgrades.

Why choose Nodegrid terminal servers?

Only one terminal server provides all the features listed above on a completely vendor-neutral platform – the Nodegrid solution from ZPE Systems.

The Nodegrid S Series terminal server uses auto-sensing ports to discover legacy and mixed-vendor infrastructure solutions and bring them under one unified management umbrella.

The Nodegrid Serial Console Plus (NSCP) is the first terminal server to offer 96 management ports on a 1U rack-mounted device (Patent No. 9,905,980).

ZPE also offers integrated branch/edge services routers with terminal server functionality, so you can consolidate your infrastructure while extending your capabilities.

All Nodegrid devices offer a variety of OOB and failover options to ensure maximum speed and reliability. They’re protected by comprehensive onboard security features like TPM 2.0, self-encrypted disk (SED), BIOS protection, Signed OS, and geofencing to keep malicious actors off the management network. They also run the open, Linux-based Nodegrid OS, supporting Guest OS and Docker containers so you can host third-party applications for automation, security, AIOps, and more. Nodegrid extends automation, security, and control to all the legacy and mixed-vendor devices on your network and unifies them with a centralized, vendor-neutral management platform for ultimate scalability, resilience, and efficiency.

Want to learn more about Nodegrid terminal servers?

ZPE Systems offers terminal server solutions for data center, branch, and edge deployments. Schedule a free demo to see Nodegrid terminal servers in action.

Request a Demo

What is a Hyperscale Data Center?

by | Dec 13, 2023 | Consolidation, Data Center Management, Edge Computing, EdgeOps, Improve Network Security, Increase Productivity, NetDevOps, NetDevOps Transformation, Network Automation, Network Edge Orchestration, Security Service Edge (SSE), Vendor Neutral Platform, Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP)

shutterstock_2204212039(1)

As today’s enterprises race toward digital transformation with cloud-based applications, software-as-a-service (SaaS), and artificial intelligence (AI), data center architectures are evolving. Organizations rely less on traditional server-based infrastructures, preferring the scalability, speed, and cost-efficiency of cloud and hybrid-cloud architectures using major platforms such as AWS and Google. These digital services are supported by an underlying infrastructure comprising thousands of servers, GPUs, and networking devices in what’s known as a hyperscale data center.

The size and complexity of hyperscale data centers present unique management, scaling, and resilience challenges that providers must overcome to ensure an optimal customer experience. This blog explains what a hyperscale data center is and compares it to a normal data center deployment before discussing the unique challenges involved in managing and supporting a hyperscale deployment.

What is a hyperscale data center?

As the name suggests, a hyperscale data center operates at a much larger scale than traditional enterprise data centers. A typical data center houses infrastructure for dozens of customers, each containing tens of servers and devices. A hyperscale data center deployment supports at least 5,000 servers dedicated to a single platform, such as AWS. These thousands of individual machines and services must seamlessly interoperate and rapidly scale on demand to provide a unified and streamlined user experience.

The biggest hyperscale data center challenges

Operating data center deployments on such a massive scale is challenging for several key reasons.

 
 

Hyperscale Data Center Challenges

Complexity

Hyperscale data center infrastructure is extensive and complex, with thousands of individual devices, applications, and services to manage. This infrastructure is distributed across multiple facilities in different geographic locations for redundancy, load balancing, and performance reasons. Efficiently managing these resources is impossible without a unified platform, but different vendor solutions and legacy systems may not interoperate, creating a fragmented control plane.

Scaling

Cloud and SaaS customers expect instant, streamlined scaling of their services, and demand can fluctuate wildly depending on the time of year, economic conditions, and other external factors. Many hyperscale providers use serverless, immutable infrastructure that’s elastic and easy to scale, but these systems still rely on a hardware backbone with physical limitations. Adding more compute resources also requires additional management and networking hardware, which increases the cost of scaling hyperscale infrastructure.

Resilience

Customers rely on hyperscale service providers for their critical business operations, so they expect reliability and continuous uptime. Failing to maintain service level agreements (SLAs) with uptime requirements can negatively impact a provider’s reputation. When equipment failures and network outages occur - as they always do, eventually - hyperscale data center recovery is difficult and expensive.

Overcoming hyperscale data center challenges requires unified, scalable, and resilient infrastructure management solutions, like the Nodegrid platform from ZPE Systems.

How Nodegrid simplifies hyperscale data center management

The Nodegrid family of vendor-neutral serial console servers and network edge routers streamlines hyperscale data center deployments. Nodegrid helps hyperscale providers overcome their biggest challenges with:

  • A unified, integrated management platform that centralizes control over multi-vendor, distributed hyperscale infrastructures.
  • Innovative, vendor-neutral serial console servers and network edge routers that extend the unified, automated control plane to legacy, mixed-vendor infrastructure.
  • The open, Linux-based Nodegrid OS which hosts or integrates your choice of third-party software to consolidate functions in a single box.
  • Fast, reliable out-of-band (OOB) management and 5G/4G cellular failover to facilitate easy remote recovery for improved resilience.

The Nodegrid platform gives hyperscale providers single-pane-of-glass control over multi-vendor, legacy, and distributed data center infrastructure for greater efficiency. With a device like the Nodegrid Serial Console Plus (NSCP), you can manage up to 96 devices with a single piece of 1RU rack-mounted hardware, significantly reducing scaling costs. Plus, the vendor-neutral Nodegrid OS can directly host other vendors’ software for monitoring, security, automation, and more, reducing the number of hardware solutions deployed in the data center.

Nodegrid’s out-of-band (OOB) management creates an isolated control plane that doesn’t rely on production network resources, giving teams a lifeline to recover remote infrastructure during outages, equipment failures, and ransomware attacks. The addition of 5G/4G LTE cellular failover allows hyperscale providers to keep vital services running during recovery operations so they can maintain customer SLAs.

Want to learn more about Nodegrid hyperscale data center solutions from ZPE Systems?

Nodegrid’s vendor-neutral hardware and software help hyperscale cloud providers streamline their operations with unified management, enhanced scalability, and resilient out-of-band management. Request a free Nodegrid demo to see our hyperscale data center solutions in action.

Request a Demo

Data Center Migration Checklist

by | Aug 18, 2023 | Data Center Management, Data Center Resilience, DevOps, NetDevOps Transformation, Network Automation, Remote Network Management, Scripting, Streamline Deployments, Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP)

A data center migration is represented by a person physically pushing a rack of data center infrastructure into place
Various reasons may prompt a move to a new data center, like finding a different provider with lower prices, or the added security of relocating assets from an on-premises location to a colocation facility or private cloud.

Despite the potential benefits, data center migrations are often tough on enterprises, both internally and from the client side of things. Data center managers, systems administrators, and network engineers must cope with the logistical difficulties of planning, executing, and supporting the move. End-users may experience service disruptions and performance issues that make their jobs harder. Migrations also tend to reveal any weaknesses in the actual infrastructure that’s moved, which means systems that once worked perfectly may require extra support during and after the migration.

The best way to limit headaches and business disruptions is to plan every step of a data center migration meticulously. This guide provides a basic data center migration checklist to help with planning and includes additional resources for streamlining your move.

Data center migration checklist

Data center migrations are always complex and unique to each organization, but there are typically two major approaches:

  • Lift-and-shift. You physically move infrastructure from one data center to another. In some ways, this is the easiest approach because all components are known, but it can limit your potential benefits if gear remains in racks for easy transport to the new location rather than using the move as an opportunity to improve or upgrade certain parts.
  • New build. You replace some or all of your infrastructure with different solutions in a new data center. This approach is more complex because services and dependencies must be migrated to new environments, but it also permits organizations to simultaneously improve operational processes, cut costs, and update existing tech stacks.

The following data center migration checklist will help guide your planning for either approach and ensure you’re asking the right questions to prepare for any potential problems.

Quick Data Center Migration Checklist

  • Conduct site surveys of the current and the new data centers to determine the existing limitations and available resources, like space, power, cooling, cable management, and security.

  • Locate – or create – documentation for infrastructure requirements such as storage, compute, networking, and applications.

  • Outline the dependencies and ancillary systems from the current data center environment that you must replicate in the new data center.

  • Plan the physical layout and overall network topology of the new environment, including physical cabling, out-of-band management, network, storage, power, rack layout, and cooling.

  • Plan your management access, both for the deployment and for ongoing maintenance, and determine how to assist the rollout (for example, with remote access and automation).

  • Determine your networking requirements (e.g., VLANs, IP addresses, DNS, MPLS) and make an implementation plan.

  • Plan out the migration itself and include disaster recovery options and checkpoints in case something changes or issues arise.

  • Determine who is responsible for which aspects of the move and communicate all expectations and plans.

  • Assign a dedicated triage team to handle end-user support requests if there are issues during or immediately after the move.

  • Create a list of vendor contacts for each migrated component so it’s easier to contact support if something goes wrong.

  • If possible, use a lab environment to simulate key steps of the data center migration to identify potential issues or gaps.

  • Have a testing plan ready to execute once the move is complete to ensure infrastructure integrity, performance, and reliability in the new data center environment.

1.  Site surveys

The first step is to determine your physical requirements – how much space, power, cooling, cable management, etc., you’ll need in the new data center. Then, conduct site surveys of the new environment to identify existing limitations and available resources. For example, you’ll want to make sure the HVAC system can provide adequate climate control – specific to the new locale – for your incoming hardware. You may need to verify that your power supply can support additional chillers or dehumidifiers, if necessary, to maintain optimal temperature ranges. In addition to physical infrastructure requirements, factors like security and physical accessibility are important considerations for your new location.

2. Infrastructure documentation

At a bare minimum, you need an accurate list of all the physical and virtual infrastructure you’re moving to the new data center. You should also collect any existing documentation on your application and system requirements for storage, compute, networking, and security to ensure you cover all these bases in the migration. If that documentation doesn’t exist, now’s the time to create it. Having as much documentation as possible will streamline many of the following steps in your data center move.

3. Dependencies and ancillary services

Aside from the infrastructure you’re moving, hundreds or thousands of other services will likely be affected by the change. It’s important to map out these dependencies and ancillary services to learn how the migration will affect them and what you can do to smooth the transition. For example, if an application or service relies on a legacy database, you may need to upgrade both the database and its hardware to ensure end-users have uninterrupted access. As an added benefit, creating this map also aids in implementing micro-segmentation for Zero Trust security.

4. Layout and topology

The next step is to plan the physical layout of the new data center infrastructure. Where will network, storage, and power devices sit in the rack and cabinets? How will you handle cable management? Will your planned layout provide enough airflow for cooling? This is also the time to plan the network topology – how traffic will flow to, from, and within the new data center infrastructure.

5. Management access

You must determine how your administrators will deploy and manage the new data center infrastructure. Will you enable remote access? If so, how will you ensure continuous availability during migration or when issues arise? Do you plan to automate your deployment with zero touch provisioning?

6. Network planning

If you didn’t cover this in your infrastructure documentation, you’ll need specific documentation for your data center networking requirements – both WAN (wide area networking) and LAN (local area networking). This is a good time to determine whether you want to exactly replicate your existing network environment or make any network infrastructure upgrades. Then, create a detailed implementation plan covering everything from VLANs to IP address provisioning, DNS migrations, and ordering MPLS circuits.

7. Migration & build planning

Next, plan out each step of the move or build itself – the actions your team will perform immediately before, during, and after the migration. It’s important to include disaster recovery options in case critical services break, or unforeseen changes cause delays. Implementing checkpoints at key stages of the move will help ensure any issues are fixed before they impact subsequent migration steps.

8. Assembling a team

At this stage, you likely have a team responsible for planning the data center migration, but you also need to identify who’s responsible for every aspect of the move itself. It’s critical to do this as early as possible so you have time to set expectations, communicate the plan, and handle any required pre-migration training or support. Additionally, ensure this team includes dedicated support staff who can triage end-user requests if any issues arise during or after the migration.

9. Vendor support

Any experienced sysadmin will tell you that anything that could go wrong with a data center migration probably will, so you should plan for the worst but hope for the best. That means collecting a list of vendor contacts for each hardware and software component you’re migrating so it will be easier to contact support if something goes awry. For especially critical systems, you may even want to alert your vendor POCs prior to the move so they can be on hand (or near their phones) on the day of the move.

Additional Data Center Migration & Management Resources

10. Lab simulation

This step may not be feasible for every organization, but ideally, you’ll use a lab environment to simulate key stages of the data center migration before you actually move. Running a virtualized simulation can help you identify potential hiccups with connection settings or compatibility issues. It can also highlight gaps in your planning – like forgetting to restore user access and security rules after building new firewalls – so you can address them before they affect production services.

11. Post-migration testing

Finally, you need to create a post-migration testing plan that’s ready to implement as soon as the move is complete. Testing will validate the integrity, performance, and reliability of infrastructure in the new environment, allowing teams to proactively resolve issues instead of waiting for monitoring notifications or end-user complaints.

Streamlining your data center migration

Using this data center migration checklist to create a comprehensive plan will help reduce setbacks on the day of the move. To further streamline the migration process and set yourself up for success in your new environment, consider upgrading to a vendor-neutral data center orchestration platform. Such a platform will provide a unified tool for administrators and engineers to monitor, deploy, and manage modern, multi-vendor, and legacy data center infrastructure. Reducing the number of individual solutions you need to access and manage during migration will decrease complexity and speed up the move, so you can start reaping the benefits of your new environment sooner.

Want to learn more about Data Center migration?

For a complete data center migration checklist, including in-depth guidance and best practices for moving day, click here to download our Complete Guide to Data Center Migrations or contact ZPE Systems today to learn more.
Contact Us Download Now