Cyclades Goes Out-Of-Band

The Cyclades AlterPath Manager gives network administrators the tools to monitor and control practically any standardized intelligent platform management interface (IPMI), said Charles Waters, vice president of global marketing at Cyclades, Fremont, Calif.

Out-of-band control technology can add an extra layer of manageability and recoverability by utilizing alternative paths around standard network connections, such as those for serial ports, KVM and power distribution units, Waters said. By bringing these common, alternative control methods under a centralized management with the AlterPath appliance, network devices can be maintained or rebooted, even when they no longer can be seen by in-band software management products, he said.

AlterPath Manager works across multivendor IPMI systems and includes centralized access control, event-logging, enterprise security integration and event-notification features, Waters said.

Cyclades is looking to add as many as 120 reseller partners in the United States by the end of 2005, he said. The company currently has 80 partners.

Matt Kaveney, president of Kelly Communications, Mountainside, N.J., sells Cyclades products as well as competing products from Avocent.

Cyclades' strength is the out-of-band console management environment, whereas Avocent plays more to the KVM-centric environment, Kaveney said.

"But either way, there's a big market for out-of-band management, particularly in networks that run truly mission-critical applications, like financial companies," Kaveney said.

Pricing for the AlterPath Manager E2000 with an IPMI Management Package that supports 500 ports, including 64 IPMI-enabled devices, starts at $12,790.