Opengear Launches Virtual Central Management System Appliance

Monitoring and management specialist Opengear has launched the Virtual Central Management System (VCMS), a virtual appliance designed to give visibility into “thousands” of racks or remote sites from a single secure interface. Here’s the scoop.

Load the VCMS into a VMware or Linux KVM host – whether on a managed server or in a hosted cloud – and get visibility into and control over network and power infrastructure and data center servers within minutes, Opengear claims.

Other benefits of VCMS, according to Opengear, are that remote gear (including equipment sans a public IP address, like cell phones) can establish secure SSH tunnels to the dashboard. Moreover, Opengear claims that this kind of centralized management cuts way down on on-site IT visits, since problems can be fixed from anywhere you can reach your dashboard.

If you’re more interested in a hardware appliance, Opengear says its CMS6100 offering has gotten a significant upgrade to match the new VCMS functions. But if virtual is what you want, Opengear VCMS pricing starts at $895/year.

Opengear is an open source company The VAR Guy is keeping a close eye on — not least of which because the VC world has shown a keen interest with a $1 million investment (EDIT: they actually closed a $1 million deal with a customer earlier this year – it wasn’t VC funding). And it looks like they’re using the money to expand their product line, so stay tuned.

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