What is cyclades

Who is Cyclades?

Cyclades is the leader in next-generation IT infrastructure management. The company’s OOBI (oo-bee) (Out-of-Band Infrastructure) solutions offer a comprehensive system of products and services that reduces IT operational costs and risks, while increasing the productivity of IT assets and personnel. More than 8,000 organizations, including 85 percent of the FORTUNE 100, depend on Cyclades’ technology and services.

What do Cyclades products do?

Cyclades’ AlterPath OOBI System provides secure alternate paths into the production IT infrastructure, enabling administrators to remotely access, diagnose and restore disconnected assets to normal operation, along with a host of other valuable services. Designed to seamlessly integrate and deploy into the enterprise, Cyclades’ AlterPath solutions include console servers, KVM and KVM over IP, power control and a manager to control the entire out-of-band infrastructure. Cyclades products provide:

• Wide coverage of data center equipment, including servers, network and telecommunications equipment, monitoring and control devices. They support and are independent of vendor, physical media, protocol, operating system and hardware platform.
• Consolidation of data center infrastructure management beyond simple remote access to individual devices. They allow for event detection, auditing and automation of the management routine, minimizing the need for human intervention.
• Integration with other legacy and emerging management technologies. They incorporate support for all the standard management protocols, including IPMI, serial console, KVM, SNMP and interoperate with vendor-specific solutions and enterprise management systems.

What benefits do Cyclades products deliver?

Cyclades products and solutions reduce IT operational costs and risks, while increasing the productivity of IT assets and personnel. They provide remote access, monitoring and management of equipment, minimizing the need for human intervention and reducing maintenance costs at the data center and remote sites while allowing for faster problem solving and higher network availability.

Why are Cyclades products necessary in today’s marketplace?

Because distributed networks and mission critical applications are being implemented on clusters or server farms (a collection of two or more computers cooperating to execute a task) rather than on a single large mainframe, console servers and power management devices are indispensable elements in managing any large computer installation.

The ability to remotely manage servers and network equipment is the most critical aspect of network administration. An effective OOBI (Out-of-Band Infrastructure), made possible by Cyclades console servers, KVM switches, Intelligent Power Distribution Units and IPMI Managers, enables “lights out” data center operation with centralized and more automated network management. In addition, time and travel expenses associated with sending a specialist to a remote location to resolve problems is eliminated. The result: reduced costs and downtime along with improved service levels.

What is Cyclades advantage in the marketplace?

Cyclades differentiates offers not only the physical access gateways for out-of-band management (console server and power distribution units, etc.), but also integrating and consolidating those components under a platform that enables the automation and remote operation of the data center.

As a pioneer in Open Source development, Cyclades leverages on embedded Linux technology and adherence to open standards to offer products that have superior flexibility, security, and platform-independence.

How do Cyclades products differ from system management products like HP OpenView, IBM Tivoli and BMC Patrol?

In a typical large data center, system management tools based on SNMP (e.g., HP OpenView, IBM Tivoli, BMC Patrol) rely on the production data network for the transport of the management information. If connectivity to one or more IT assets is lost, these tools become ineffective. (The situation is comparable to a phone line that is not working. Because it is down, it can’t be used to the phone company with a repair request.) An alternative path is needed to reach the disconnected IT assets and restore them back into the production network. These alternative paths are collectively referred to as an OOBI (oo-bee), or Out-of-Band Infrastructure. The OOBI complements system management tools by providing a facility to reconnect affected assets without the need for a site visit or physical presence at the asset.

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