Out-of-Band Management provides an alternative pathway to access devices within your IT infrastructure.  It is completely separate from the primary enterprise network on which it is installed. If this primary network fails, you need a secure alternative method so that problems can be resolved quickly.  Out-of-Band Management provides this emergency access, by allowing direct access to the serial port of the affected device. 

It is not sufficient to simply rely on software based network management tools which only work when the enterprise network is running.  Infrastructure problems such as hardware, network infrastructure or operational system failure disrupt the normal access to your equipment via an Ethernet connection so these network management tools are rendered useless as a result.  The only method of resolving infrastructure failures quickly is by using out-of-band management which provides direct dial-up access to the serial console port of the affected device.  It therefore directly addresses IT infrastructure failures quickly and effectively.

Out-of-Band management is essential if problems are to be resolved quickly.  No IT department should rely solely on software based management tools.  Unplanned outages cost money so you need to ensure you have full access to all your devices even if the enterprise network fails.  47% of all operational failures are identified as being network or IT hardware failures (Forrester Research) and can only be addressed by out-of-band access tools. These tools will greatly reduce downtime.

Typically, an out-of-band management solution consists of a terminal server or console server which resides on a secondary maintenance network, yet is able to contact network devices on the primary network via cable connection to serial console ports on the network devices. In cases where a secondary network is not feasible, a 4G LTE Cellular or dial-up connection can also be used to connect to the console server in order to provide out-of-band access to command functions on remote devices when normal network communication is not available.

With a console server out of band management solution, you can easily connect to console ports on remote network devices, and invoke troubleshooting and configuration commands to quickly deal with malfunctioning network equipment and this removes the need for an engineering call-out to site. An out-of-band management solution cuts network administration costs by eliminating these expensive service calls to remote sites, and also minimizes network downtime, by providing a fast, secure way to solve network problems whatever and wherever they are.