Opengear solutions help Secura Hosting improve responsiveness and resilience of its data centre operations

Secura has deployed Opengear CM7100 console servers for out-of-band management of security appliances and storage arrays

Opengear, a leading provider of critical infrastructure management solutions through advanced console servers, remote management, monitoring, and cellular out-of-band products, has announced a successful project with Secura Hosting, a cloud hosting provider that is using Opengear solutions to improve the responsiveness and resilience of its data centre operations supporting mission critical customers.

Secura Hosting is a highly regarded service provider with a growing number of customers that range from European hospitality brand PPHE Hotel Group to innovative software-as-a-service providers including Causeway and Selima.

Secura supports critical applications and systems with secure, scalable, high-performance virtual private cloud hosting, delivered from a number of Tier 3+ UK data centres.

As a provider that prides itself in adherence to certified best practice processes and a holder of ISO 9001: 2008, ISO 20000: 2005 and the new ISO 27001: 2013 accreditations, Secura has built a strong set of operational processes to ensure that its infrastructure is designed for reliability, security and scale.

Following the acquisition of the business in 2014 and two years of rapid growth and infrastructure now within three separate data centre locations, Secura evaluated a number of remote access technologies to help it reduce the time consuming process of sending engineers to perform maintenance and upgrades at its remote locations.

Opengear Console Server

As Dan Nichols, CTO for Secura Hosting explains, “Opengear’s Console Server offered a well-rounded feature set that was easy to deploy while working seamlessly with our processes.” At each data centre site, Secura has deployed CM7100 Console Servers delivering up to 48 serial ports for out-of-band management of network and server devices including core switches, firewalls, security appliances and storage arrays including its high performance Compellent SANs.

“Opengear provides us with the ability to remotely access low level management functions of our network and storage elements at each site to carry out key tasks such as firmware updates, patches and other configuration changes that cannot be carried out over the normal management platforms,” explains Nichols, “By using Opengear, we effectively save a couple of days each quarter in management time and in the event of any unexpected issues, we have an effective out-of-band method of quickly troubleshooting any physical device at any data centre location.”

Nichols estimates its investment in Opengear has cut sites visits by 30% effectively paying for the upgrade in just 7 months while ancillary benefits such as full audit trail on configuration changes have proven valuable in enforcing its rigid security policies.

“Opengear SmartOOB has been a behind the scenes winner for us,” adds Nichols, “As we continue to grow and potentially look at new data centre sites and overseas opportunities, it will continue to form a valuable part of our infrastructure management toolset,” Nichols concludes.