Out of Band Management – Connected Device Serial Console Support
For districts with several or even hundreds of schools to remotely manage; network reliability, diagnostic tools, and total cost of network infrastructure ownership are immense concerns.
The legacy troubleshooting options equal a heavy load to manage and a hefty price tag; especially when learning can be disrupted by down time. Multiply the costs of having spares for each location, unplanned downtime, and truck rolls, and the implications grow astronomically.
Your IT department must invest in highly resilient network infrastructure to proactively avoid unplanned network disruptions and downtime. The consequences of prolonged down time can have a
negative impact on the ability of your teachers to effectively complete the lessons of the day. Today STEM learning relies heavily on the Internet and the Cloud to integrate a vast amount of information into todays lessons plans. In the past you had to ‘fly blind’—troubleshooting your network only after it went down. The most common form of troubleshooting was having teachers at schools check connections, power cycle devices, and ultimately ship failed devices back for repair. In turn, administrators had to get spares to the school that was disrupted. This resulted in frustrated Administrators, Teachers and Students as systems that could be down for up to 24 hours.
The second option was to send someone on-site to fix or replace the device but with budget and staff cuts this scenario quickly became burdensome.
The third option was to store spare hardware at each school—relying on untrained staff to replace the failing systems. If the problems were not solved by the hardware swap, the administrators would still have to visit the location to troubleshoot the root cause of the issue.
When uptime is critical to a schools operation, how do you get the most of your network solutions? By choosing a wireless failover solution that also allows for secure, remote console Out-of-Band Management (OOBM). OOBM to the console port of the primary router is a value-added layer to any distributed network. A secondary secure path to the devices at remote schools when the primary network goes down means minimized disruption and downtime, ensuring continuity and happy staff and students. It also reduces the need for on-site visits, and a safeguard for ‘four-nines’ network reliability.
Cradlepoint provides a secondary WAN connection over LTE or Metro WiFi, as well as a secure remote method to access your primary branch router’s serial console port for configuration, troubleshooting, and management over 3G/4G/LTE, along with providing a dependable backup WAN connection without the need to install expensive wireline circuits. Cradlepoint also offers products that provide the secondary WAN connection with remote Out-of-Band Management as well as router redundancy for the LAN via VRRP while ensuring high branch LAN availability with router redundancy and ease-of-use.
NETWORK CHALLENGES
With many districts moving critical applications and learning tools to the cloud, there is an incredible importance on each school LAN and WAN to be up and running 24/7. If a piece of equipment or the network does go down, the IT staff has to deal with not only the responsibility of lost productivity, but also repairing the issue. Cost and resources are also a challenge with tightening budgets. Managing all of your schools can get tricky if multiple locations go down and need attention.
TYPICAL DEPLOYMENTS
To maximize your network, Cradlepoint has two typical deployments that are configured for Out-of-Band Management.
The first configuration is where the Cradlepoint is the backup router, supplying network and hardware redundancy via VRRP. The second is actually the most popular for those who have a primary branch router already on-site with MPLS link or other wireline WAN link and only require WAN link redundancy.
THE SERIAL REDIRECT FEATURE
The Serial Redirector feature can be utilized in two different ways: by connecting to the routers WAN IP address through SSH, then typing the command “serial” at the CLI; or you can also enable Telnet-to-Serial, then Telnet to the routers WAN IP address on a specified port and be immediately connected to the serial interface. The Telnet method is only recommended over a VPN tunnel as the traffic is not encrypted. For connectivity directly over the Internet the SSH method is recommended.
SETTING UP YOUR HARDWARE
Connect the USB-to-Serial adaptor to the USB port of the router, or if you have an IBR11x0 model use a null modem adapter to directly connect without a USB adapter. Then connect a console cable to the serial port on either the USB to serial adapter or the IBR11x0 serial port. Next, connect the other end of the cable to the console port of the device you’d like to manage. Keep in mind Cradlepoint routers contain embedded LTE modems supplying an immediate network infrastructure cost-savings because the expense of a dedicated OOBM modem and POTS line will no longer be required. For hundreds, or thousands of remote locations, this could compile to astronomical savings per month.
MAXIMIZING NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE
There are several scenarios for the Network Administrator to use Out-of-Band Management as a diagnostic tool. For instance misconfiguring an ACL, access control list (commonly known as ‘fat-finger syndrome’), bouncing an interface and shutting down the wrong interface, non-responsive devices after reboots, and if a carrier/ wired line goes down and there is no other way to login to that router. You can also use OOBM to remotely configure a replacement router without having to roll a truck or pre-configure a replacement (RMA) router before sending it out to the remote location. Having this extra diagnostic layer is an added bonus to maximizing your network downtime and redundancy solution.
CRADLEPOINT ADVANTAGES
Cradlepoint solutions are proven to deliver unparalleled ease of cloud-based deployment and management, with industry leading security, analytics, and best-in-class, high availability LTE integration. Cradlepoint solutions provide uncompromised 3G/4G/LTE wireless performance while delivering proven network system interoperability. With both integrated wireless WAN and non-integrated versions, the solutions are ideal for distributed operations and emerging industries that require either remote connectivity or multi-WAN redundancy.
RECOMMEND BEST PRACTICES FOR OUT-OF-BAND MANAGEMENT
Cradlepoint highly recommends the following best practices for Out-of-Band Management:
- Utilize Cradlepoint routers with embedded modems for network redundancy, OOBM, and VRRP.
- Use the SSH-to-Serial access because it is encrypted and requires a username and password. It’s also recommended not using Telnet-to-Serial access unless the device is on a private network and not accessible from the Internet.
- Do not use Telnet-to-Serial access for access over the Internet.
- An USB-to-Serial adaptor that uses an FTDI chipset is required to use Serial Redirect or a Cradlepoint product with built-in serial port support.
- Serial Redirect is currently supported on the following Cradlepoint Routers: COR IBR600, COR IBR650, COR IBR1100, COR IBR1150, CBA750B, MBR1400 (requires hardware version 2), and the AER2100.
If you think deploying a Failover or OOBM might be right for your district
let us know and we can help you design the right solution for you.
