Data Center Geeks Hub

Running a data center business is a tough challenge as it is. Why complicate it even more by designing a control panel that is overflowing with features, but features arranged so poorly that you do not know where to start? During the creation and ongoing development of EasyDCIM we were always guided by three golden rules: intuitiveness, simplicity and purposefulness. Today we are both excited and proud to announce that we pushed this idea much further ahead with our freshly released 1.6.1 version! Buckle up, we are going for a ride through all the most important attractions of this game-changing new update! Modernized design of main dashboard Are you the kind of person who likes to grasp all the details of a situation with just a single glance? You will definitely enjoy the whole new look and feel of our control panel then. Especially noticeable in the two most vital areas – main dashboard and server summary, this massive interface redesign is meant to guarantee even smoother interaction with the application. Thanks to the more comprehensive information about your locations and devices gathered in one place, you no longer need to switch between the tabs to keep your data center under control 24/7. Let us have a quick overview of the new dashboard layout: 1. Locations - here you can see the list of your locations along with such specifics as traffic from last hour, rack cabinets occupancy, power usage from last hour as well as the number of currently active and inactive servers. Moreover, using the handy widget to the right you can easily view the traffic and usage statistics from a chosen time period, for each location individually. 2. Recent Activity - no operations on your devices will slip your attention ever again since all system notifications will be nicely archived and organized in this section. 3. Top Servers - this widget was designed to let you instantly see your top six servers, additionally sorting them out according to used transfer for the last day as well as uptime. 4. Selected Reports - would you like to keep a sharp eye on the specific statistics at all times? In this area of the dashboard you can gain quick insight into the reports that interest you the most. Network ports traffic from the past five minutes? There it is, right at your fingertips! 5. EasyDCIM License - the last piece of information that you may want to have always at hand. It will inform you on such details of your license as, for example, type of the chosen pricing model and billing status, number of owned devices or current system version. Overhauled server summary view The second section of the system which was rebuilt for enhanced convenience is the summary view of a server. 1. Device Details - the most basic information about the server presented in a compact form. One click on the neighboring, built-in tab and you can preview some more specific parameters or even initiate the installation of a new operating system. This section also contains fully editable notes and comments on the servers. 2. Connections - from here you can check really quick your server’s connection with IPMI, switches and PDU devices. 3. Traffic Aggregation - a practical graph illustrating traffic aggregation from the selected time frame. 4. Assigned Metadata - considering the importance of this particular widget to users, we rearranged it a little bit and grouped metadata into categories. This should make the information even more easily accessible than before. 5. Important Notifications - just like in the dashboard, all notifications on servers appearing in the system will be logged here as well. ACL – extended set of user permissions ACL (Access Control List) has become an integral part of EasyDCIM as with the release of 1.5.2 version. It allows you to greatly increase the security of your infrastructure by creating custom user groups and defining their access to various parts of the system. The scope of available permissions has been further widened up with plenty of new options revolving around: 1. Devices Management: Device Bays, Monitors, Power Usage, VLANs Notifications Graphs 2. Orders Management: Activate, Suspend, Unsuspend, Terminate Service Delete, Create, Edit, Accept, Reject Order 3. API: Devices, Racks, Floors Users Inventory Of course this is just a snapshot of the areas that you will have full control over. For the rest of them, feel free to see the official changelog. Assorted improvements and other features Optimizing the transparency of the interface was our primary, but not the only focus in the 1.6.1 release. We have compiled a series of other upgrades as well, including the following: Quick Search Tool - look up with a single click the desired IP address or subnet whenever you need it and no matter in which section of EasyDCIM you currently are Location Power Consumption report - display power consumption from one of four available time intervals Location Usage (GB) report – trace the changes in your transfer usage from any available time frame Possibility to filter servers based on the IP address and subnet address in CIDR notation Added means to create a graph with traffic statistics generated from all devices assigned to a specific user From overhauled UI interface giving your control panel a modern and fresh look to almost doubled set of ACL permissions now at your disposal. These are still just the highlights of features that make the new EasyDCIM v1.6.1. Which ones are your personal saviors? Be sure to see the complete record of changes available in the changelog right below! Reveal More! Using EasyDCIM version prior to 1.6.0? EasyDCIM 1.6.0 is the first version that officially supports the newest Debian 9 "Stretch" only. All new installations of EasyDCIM as well as updates from the 1.6.0 version will be fully automated thanks to the dedicated installer and application updater. No worries there. As for the older systems (from v1.6.0 down), it is advised to contact our Support Team so as to carry out the update in the most safe and comprehensive manner. Lots of our clients have already got in touch with us and switched to the 1.6.0 version. If you do not want any of the new opportunities pass you by, be sure to follow their footsteps and perform each system update easily on your own after that. Open a new support ticket with "EasyDCIM v1.6.0 update" as its title. Provide access data to the SSH server on which your current EasyDCIM version is installed (account with root privileges required). Provide access data to the SSH server you want to migrate to (account with root privileges and Debian 9 system required). Please kindly stand by as we perform a back-up of your EasyDCIM and migrate the data. Switch the application to live after verifying the correctness of the 1.6.1 version. We look forward to lending you a helpful hand in updating your EasyDCIM!

While today’s exciting release of EasyDCIM v1.6.0 may not come entirely as a surprise, its scope and significance certainly will. In our previous Blog article we shed a bit of light on the upcoming, performance-oriented improvements already, but why not delve into some further details? This way, you will have all the background needed to find your way around this milestone EasyDCIM update real quick. Let’s get started! Dispersed architecture model It goes without saying that the construction of modern network devices monitoring systems poses a lot of challenges to the administrators. One of them is round-the-clock accumulation of large amounts of data such as transfer and power consumption, or current device load. In EasyDCIM the speed with which this data is fetched depends mainly on the total number of devices managed. That is why it is crucial for the information gathering system to be maximally scalable. In the 1.5.5 version, this task was assigned to a single server - the very same one on which EasyDCIM was installed. The single-threaded architecture had certain limitations however as it allowed to send only one request at a time, which might have caused tangible delays while handling large numbers of devices. EasyDCIM v1.6.0 approaches the data collection process in a slightly different way, empowering the administrator to share out this task between many external servers via remote agents. The biggest advantage of dispersed architecture model is that it allows to effectively distribute the load, which ultimately leads to much reduced response time of the system. Being able to switch from one server to a more powerful one whenever needed and without interfering with the main server on which EasyDCIM is installed ensures greater scalability of the application as well. Data collecting agents based on a multi-threaded architecture and closer to end devices are much faster in fetching the information, and more optimal with more devices. Summing up, the newly introduced solution allows you to run many threads at a given time, thanks to which the number of completed tasks increases even a few times, successfully resolving the problem of network latency. NETCONF protocol support The basic network protocol EasyDCIM relies on is SNMP. It allows you to remotely disable and enable network ports for most of network devices such as switches or routers. But some devices, like those provided by Juniper and Cisco brands, are not supported by SNMP. To let administrators remotely manage the devices of those manufacturers in the same manner, we then implemented the integration with NETCONF. NETCONF management protocol is an XML-based protocol used by client applications to request and change configuration information about network devices. The way it works is that a NETCONF server sends a request to the appropriate software modules of the device, encrypts the response and returns it to the client application. Briefly speaking, NETCONF provides a robust API for interacting with network nodes and can be easily used to insert or download structured data from the device, thus facilitating the automation of everyday device management. A solid package of new gear Let us also have a quick overview of some other utilities that may capture your interest: IP Address Management For EasyDCIM v1.6.0 – streamlined management of VLANs, subnets, IP addresses, and orders OS Installation For EasyDCIM v1.5.0 - added post installation scripts for Debian "Jessie" and Debbie "Stretch" plus new VMware ESXi 6.5 U1 OS installation template More advanced support for remote agents Means to export QR codes for devices and items Possibility to easily create and update device types through API Since the list of total changes is too long to squeeze them in here, make sure to visit the official changelog of EasyDCIM v1.6.0 just under the below link! Explore More! The final major change - Debian 9 support In its previous versions, EasyDCIM offered support for two operating systems: Debian 8 "Jessie" and Ubuntu 16.04.6 LTS (Xenial Xerus). Since both have grown slightly out of date, soon the support for their most important service updates as well as security improvements will be ceased. In light of this fact, the only operating system that EasyDCIM v1.6.0 can be installed on is Debian 9 "Stretch". Why Debian? First off, it is one of the oldest Linux distributions prized for its stability, security as well as excellent package management system that automatically solves dependency issues. Another fact that acts in favor of this operating system are regular releases of new stable versions and full 3-year client support for every following release plus 2-year support for previous versions as part of the Long Term Support project. Further steps Specially for the release of 1.6.0 version we have created a dedicated installer and application updater that will automatically detect the current operating system at the time of EasyDCIM set-up. New installations will require then no extra effort on your part. However, if you want to update your application from the previous versions (regardless of the OS EasyDCIM was installed on), we strongly encourage you to follow the below instructions in order to perform the update in the most secure manner. Open a new support ticket with "EasyDCIM v1.6.0 update" as its title. Provide access data to the SSH server on which your current EasyDCIM version is installed (account with root privileges required) Provide access data to the SSH server you want to migrate to (account with root privileges and Debian 9 system required) Please kindly stand by as we perform a back-up of your EasyDCIM and migrate the data. Switch the application to live after verifying the correctness of the 1.6.0 version. As you can see, you are only a few steps away from delving into all ingenious tools this revolutionized EasyDCIM edition has to offer. Ready to make the first one? Get In Touch!

For the past few weeks we have been really busy, with our focus set on the soon-to-be-released EasyDCIM v1.6.0. But before it is ready for the official arrival, would you like to hear some spicy details about the variety of novel tools we prepared for you guys? If so, be sure to read on! Along with the increase in number of devices added to EasyDCIM, the amount of resources needed to collect all information about these devices significantly rises as well. As you can easily figure out, this in turn may lead to network latency and unwelcome delays in data fetching. To counteract this problem, EasyDCIM v1.6.0 will rely on the dispersed architecture model where the data collection process will be distributed to external servers via multiple remote agents, capable of performing many more queries in a given time interval. Speaking of remote agents, if you ever installed OS in several separate data center locations via EasyDCIM, you might be quite familiar with this term already. Given their sheer practicality, we extended support for remote agents in the 1.6.0 version even further, securing their integration with the IP Address Management For EasyDCIM module, enabling Post Installation Scripts for Debian 8 and Debian 9, and adding an extra OS installation template: VMware ESXi 6.5 U1. Next on our list of scheduled implementations is support for a completely new protocol type – NETCONF. Its main purpose will be the remote management of those network devices that the current SNMP protocol does not support. This includes mainly switches of Juniper and Cisco brands. Summing up this brief features overview, we can safely say that the 1.6.0 release of EasyDCIM will have much to offer in terms of improved performance across virtually every section of the application. But, so as not to lose the element of surprise and spoil the fun of first-hand exploration for you, that is about as much early details as we can share for now. As soon as the EasyDCIM update becomes officially available, we will release a follow-up article so keep your eyes peeled! Stay Tuned! See also our latest Case Study articles on LibyanSpider and Blazing SEO.

Modern data center architectures are getting more and more complex. So much so that without a robust automation strategy managing them would be close to impossible. Unarguably, automation spares lots of pains by minimizing human errors, cutting the costs and freeing up the staff from mundane but essential data center tasks. No one knows it better than Neil Emeigh, President at Rayobyte. We were more than honored to help his company thrive on ever new levels of automation through our software. Recently Neil agreed to join us in a little chat and spill some beans on what made his company choose EasyDCIM in the first place. Have a pleasant reading! Before EasyDCIM... Rayobyte has stepped into the data center market a few years back and as many other start-ups, soon realized the amount of work that was cut out for them. Most of all, they needed a reliable automation software solution that would provide centralized access to all their data center resources. First off, we asked Neil what tools Rayobyte was using for this purpose before finding their way to EasyDCIM. The very first solution (Neil could not help but smile at the sheer thought of it) was just a makeshift excel sheet online that they quickly abandoned in search of more efficient alternatives. But none of them seemed to meet the needs of a yet developing company entirely. The two software instruments that did capture their interest were either too pricey, or "features were impossible to implement upon request, nor could we do it ourselves due to no API. Too many bugs/issues didn't allow us to be comfortable growing." After being on a hunt for a perfect tool for a while, Rayobyte came across EasyDCIM, and luckily for both sides – stayed there for longer. ...And After Today, Rayobyte uses EasyDCIM to run and manage hundreds of servers that operate their popular proxy service. Interested in what exactly changed for Rayobyte after they have switched their business automation software, we turned to Neil for some extra insight. And we got more than we could have wished for! "All of our owned hardware and parts are stored in a single system that allows for automatic ordering with WHMCS. Other management abilities (PDU, switch, CPU/temp/etc, etc) are yet to be used to their full potential, but as they continue to mature we'll be adopting them more and more. The biggest achievement is being comfortable having all our inventory in a system we can trust for the long term." Being obsessed with server provisioning and management automation, we never stop seeking new ways to push it to the next level in EasyDCIM. This obviously includes peeking at the other players on the market and learning a thing or two from them whenever we can. This time also we jumped at the opportunity and picked Neil’s brains on how he would rate automation in EasyDCIM versus other software his company had the chance to test out. Without a shadow of doubt in his voice, Neil concluded that most of them, "from order to sending out an email for the credentials for the server and the IPMI include some steps that require human involvement and we didn’t have that problem with EasyDCIM." Being oriented at fast service delivery, you must be able to reduce the time needed for ongoing tasks and concentrating on more strategic projects. And who doesn’t like the idea of generating maximum profit with minimum effort, right? Neil also agrees that "spending an hour of engineer time to set up a server takes away a lot from the bottom line". Establishing a solid software background is pivotal to reducing IT costs without losing out on service quality. And we feel extremely proud to have been recognized by Rayobyte as a means to this end! Before heading over to the last part of our conversation, we probed Neil about the feature that his company keeps deriving the greatest advantage from. "Full automatic deployment from start to end after a WHMCS order. This end to end solution has potential that is not seen very easily on the market elsewhere." This particular piece of feedback added a lot to our confidence because many clients in fact approached us on the subject of integration between EasyDCIM and WHMCS in the past. And so, seeing the growing interest in this popular billing and automation platform, we finally hooked up with guys from ModulesGarden who are experts at designing high-end addons for the WHMCS system. As a result of this close cooperation two modules were delivered - EasyDCIM Dedicated Servers For WHMCS and EasyDCIM Colocation For WHMCS. Both are offered completely free of charge to let you enjoy the best of two worlds at the same time. And it was great to hear from Rayobyte they really do! The power of feedback Many companies shy away from customer feedback. Because sometimes it comes with appraisals, sometimes – expectations. We thrive on both. To us, software development is more about brainstorming ideas with clients, finding the most optimal solutions, and working hard towards their direct implementation. And Rayobyte was more than generous with all the support they shared on our platform throughout these many months of being our dear partner. During today’s session we received even some more: "Without your responsive team fixing bugs, adding features, etc, my feelings toward the product might be entirely different. You have me as a customer for life and your one-time expenses for this amazing developer team will pay off over the months/years. A very wise business model that I highly suggest you continue to pursue." These words melted our hearts. But much as we appreciate this token of loyalty, we never intend to simply rest on our laurels. So, looking ahead into the future of EasyDCIM a bit, we asked Neil Emeigh about the upgrades that he would still love to see in our software. At the top of his company’s list appeared a broader toolkit related to IP management. And feeling pretty closely aligned with this prospect, we already look forward to getting around to it in earnest! Final thoughts Nowadays data centers have plenty of responsibilities, but not necessarily personnel. Rayobyte realized that the only way up is through full-time automation of their server ordering, provisioning, and management processes. This decision led them straight to EasyDCIM. Did they ever consider switching back to the tools they once tested? We believe Neil's following words to speak for themselves: "As for server management, inventory, monitoring, ordering, etc, nothing compares to EasyDCIM in terms of functionality and price." Slightly apprehensive but also full of hope, the moment came to ask Neil the decisive question. Whether he would recommend EasyDCIM to other server providers struggling with similar shortages his company once faced. Neil answered with an anecdote about how he met up with a close friend only to find out that they both used and loved EasyDCIM. This can only mean one thing - two testimonies are better than one, right? :) But still, nothing can compete with first-hand experience so see for yourself how EasyDCIM can help your company reach new heights of success!

Do you know what links a data center without a proper device monitoring system and a car with a faulty engine? They are both doomed to fail – and rather sooner than later. Luckily, EasyDCIM supplies you with all the tools you need to keep your inventory well-organized and easily accessible. The 1.5.5 release we have the pleasure of announcing today, makes this process even more automated and time-effective that ever before! Quick device and user overview Our very latest edition of EasyDCIM all gravitated toward more intuitive forms navigation enabled by useful helpers and placeholders. Wanting to push this idea some further, we now added equally handy tooltips for at least several different device types in EasyDCIM. Owing to this, every time you hover over a certain device from your inventory, a pop up notification will appear with all crucial details on the given item. Of course, the tooltip contents will vary depending on the device kind, including always the most essential information you may need on the fly. For example, the tooltip of the server on the below screen includes such data as location, assigned client, status and bandwidth usage. While here you may quickly pick such specifics of the chosen PDU like its label, model, location, number of outlets, or power usage from the set interval. The complete list of supported device types includes: Server Blade Server Network (Switches & Routers) PDU Colocation CPU, RAM and HDD Items But that is not all. In the same manner you will be able to preview summary of each user and with a single glance access the list of their devices along with specific location plus aggregated traffic from last month. Extended QR codes support Another area of focus in EasyDCIM v1.5.5 are QR codes. Each data center consists of multiple interconnected appliances which most of the time are handled remotely, ensuring maximum administrative supervision. But what if you need physical access to a certain device? Unless you have your equipment properly systematized, finding the right item to work on may take more of your time than you can probably spare. For this very purpose, we introduced the possibility to label each hardware component with designated QR codes that contain the most vital information on the device and can be easily printed out from the EasyDCIM panel. To best illustrate how this simple function can optimize the management of your entire physical inventory, let us walk you through a real-life scenario: The administrator prints out the QR code for a device (a server in our case). Then, the QR code in a paper form is placed on the corresponding physical device in the server room. The data center technician scans the QR code using his smartphone. After clicking the link, a window opens up with all specifications about the device. The technician is able to quickly check which parts are to be manually added to the server, without even having to log in to the application. And here is how the entire process looks like in a live demonstration: Numerous other novelties and improvements In addition to the already mentioned cornerstones, the toolkit of EasyDCIM has been further boosted with some other practical features as well. Assigning metadata for such items like CPU, RAM or HDD Possibility to define bulk metadata values for SNMP Settings and IPMI Settings Power to block certain actions within a particular device (boot device, install operating system, activate service and more) Maintaining order in your data center inventory is one of the chores that we cannot get rid of entirely. Just yet at least. But we definitely can make it as automated, effortless, and labor-saving as possible. As always, we would love to hear what you think about the type of Admin Experience we are striving towards with each next release of EasyDCIM. If there is anything you feel like sharing with our team, the comments section is all yours! Oh, and do not forget to follow up on the remaining points of our 1.5.5 update! View The Changelog!

Over the last years the demand for easier, faster, and more efficient server provisioning and data center management has immensely intensified. But so have our attempts to fill the niche in these soaring expectations with ever more simple and intuitive design of our control panel. How well did we perform in accomplishing this goal? We feel in no position to answer this question ourselves, therefore we sat down today with Ahmed Shibani, the Chief Technology Officer at Libyan Spider, for a brief conversation about the dynamic nature of modern data centers and how EasyDCIM helped his company overcome the obstacles that were stopping it in the tracks. Libyan Spider on a quest for innovation Through the course of many years of business activity, Libyan Spider was relying on an open source DCIM system which had a fairly narrow set of utilities, but allowed them to provide personalized web hosting services to their clients with a satisfactory level of automation. Up to a point, that is, when the company’s board figured out that "If we can substantially decrease the time and effort required to bring our customers visualizations into realization, then we and our customers would both benefit greatly". Needless to say, saying goodbye to the outdated and somewhat crude software solution was for Libyan Spider the first step that they needed to make before plunging into this ambitious venture. Looking backward at the limitations that were preventing his company from making the dynamic progress they were set on, Ahmed notices: "As our infrastructure grew larger, we needed a robust solution that would allow us to have a 360 degrees view of our infrastructure at all times. And when a datacenter becomes larger you realize there are so many things to track, from available ports on a switch, to power management, bandwidth management, provisioning, etc". But greater administrative flexibility and round-the-clock monitoring of both software and hardware components were not the only requirements that their future control panel needed to incorporate. Ahmed goes on to reveal that when taking the long-term approach towards budget planning, you also need something to "fit nicely with your billing system." EasyDCIM steps in to fill the gap After recounting all sorts of specific essentials that they were after, Ahmed mentions that when this decisive moment finally came, Libyan Spider bound their future with EasyDCIM. When asked in what ways our tool exactly helped his company achieve the far-reaching goals they had pinned for themselves, without a moment of hesitation Ahmed replied: "EasyDCIM has delivered our expectations and surpassed it, it has allowed us to bring the datacenter closer to our customers, and it has made our technical staff's life easier". With our spirits immensely uplifted in reaction to this powerful vote of confidence, we immediately sprang up to learn some more details on the experience that Libyan Spider have had with our software throughout the many years of using it. Once again, we were deeply touched to hear that: "Today we depend on EasyDCIM as an accurate inventory management system, we trust it with servers life cycle management, integration with WHMCS and NOC-PS has decreased our average server delivery time from 24 hours to 1 hour." We were no less delighted about some truly kind-hearted words on our customer service as well: "and on top of that you get awesome friendly support." As our conversation was nearing to an end, partly of our own curiosity but mostly with the aim to understand our clients’ needs even better for the future, we asked Ahmed which single chunk of EasyDCIM brought the biggest boon to his business routine. Would you like to know what his first response was? "My favorite feature would be Server Provisioning, integration with NOC-PS is exceptional and reliable. This wouldn't have been possible if EasyDCIM didn't have another great feature which is IPMI Integration." Was it worth it? The final verdict Keeping in mind what led Libyan Spider to switching their old control panel for a more cutting-edge model in the first place, this answer may not have come as a complete shock to us, but left us with some other valuable conclusions instead. When we were preparing for this interview, our primary focus was to encourage other companies out there in the world to get out of the box that is confining them, and seek out innovative business solutions that provide them with plenty of room for growth. Just like Libyan Spider did. But little did we realize that this little project will turn into a valuable lesson for ourselves as well. A spark of hope, actually, that everything we are doing to help companies increase their productivity by taking as many redundant, repetitive tasks off their shoulders as possible, has a tangible impact that ripples through every sector of their lives. Whether you are just starting your journey with web hosting or find yourself stuck in the routine of mediocrity, let the passionate words of recommendation that Ahmed was so kind as to share with us today, guide you straight to EasyDCIM!

For the past few years we have been really busy collecting ideas and implementing new features to make your experience with our software not only maximally beneficial, but enjoyable as well. Recently we came to the realization that the more options we pack into our system, the greater the need to keep things simple. Otherwise, what would be the point of having tons of functionalities stacked one on top of the other if you had to waste precious minutes every time when trying to find something? Finally, after a series of readjustments and tune-ups we managed to reconcile the expanding arsenal of server-related instruments with the ability to navigate through them in a still intuitive and swift manner. Get ready for an intense gust of refreshment triggered by the release of EasyDCIM v1.5.4! The first wave of a sweeping change has affected several forms that you use on an everyday basis to regulate all bits and pieces of your data center operations. What we did was add practical placeholders and helpers in suitable places so that you could know instantly what the given field is responsible for, and what type of information is supposed to be provided within. No need to worry any more that you may misunderstand a vital setting and be forced to start the configuration all over again. Among the forms that were immensely simplified you will find: Add/Edit Device Form Add/Edit Item Form Mass Create Form Auto Discovering Form SNMP Device Settings Form IPMI Device Settings Form Traffic Aggregation Settings Form Base Settings Form Having all details on your clients stored in one place proves of invaluable service when you wish to monitor the status and usage of their key resources in real time. From this day on you will have the opportunity to benefit from one more type of statistics and that is the traffic aggregated on each device assigned to a specific user. Another novel feature that we just could not help but to push into motion is the automated installation of Windows Server 2019 via the Remote Provisioning Module. Care to have a look at some of the other optimizations as well? Possibility to start the noVNC session in a new window, plus stop the active noVNC session directly in the active session window. Added support for HP iLO4 and Dell iDrac 8 console Capability to paginate the API results for a series of specific endpoints Smoother device-to-rack assignment A new popup informing about the termination of a service Enhancing admin experience has been the primary guideline for further development of EasyDCIM since the get-go, and always more of a feedback-reaction kind of process for us rather than a pursuit of some arbitrarily set standards. We hope our newly born 1.5.4 update to bring your way all the flexibility needed to exploiting your company’s potential to maximum. But enough from us. Let’s now hear in the comments your thoughts on the progress we have made and all those things that you like the most about EasyDCIM v1.5.4! Tap into the full changelog!

As the sophistication of IT systems has magnified over the past years (in terms of both software and hardware complexity & the number of deployed cooperating subsystems), so has the need to separate components responsible for different types of tasks. What eventually led to simplifying the configuration and management processes, that is the broadly understood administration, was the development of master/slave communication model. The general idea behind it is was allowing two or more completely independent and geographically dispersed programs to communicate with one another in order to achieve a common goal. And so, functioning as a service provider, the master program or device distributes tasks, while several other programs or slave devices are the users of this service, carrying out the issued commands. Such an architectural pattern will prove of great value when wanting to install a specific operating system in chosen locations spread all over the world. From the following article you will learn how to do it now from the confines of your very own EasyDCIM admin panel. EasyDCIM v1.5.2 – The way it worked before The 1.5.2 version of EasyDCIM was featured with built-in operating system installer supporting two different types of configurations that will be briefly discussed in the following sections. Simple configuration without VLANs In case of the basic setup without the use of VLAN, no additional router configuration is in fact necessary. All you need to do is make sure that there are no other active DHCP servers operating within the network as they may interfere with the DHCP server used by EasyDCIM. Advanced configuration with multiple VLANs Things look a bit different when you have several VLANs in your data center. First, you need to configure a router or L3 switch that will forward DHCP broadcasts from external VLANs to the EasyDCIM IP address. For this purpose, you can use the "DHCP Relay" function and enable the transmission of broadcasts from one DHCP server to another. But what if you have no access to the switch at the moment or simply cannot redirect queries from a subnetwork to the given DHCP server? That is a roadblock indeed and the only solution would be to set up another DHCP server in a new location. EasyDCIM v1.5.3 – The way it works now Remote applications Starting from the 1.5.3 version, EasyDCIM extends support for remote applications (called slaves) that can be installed in selected locations around the world. Each application contains three fundamental components including: DHCP Server - the DHCP protocol allows devices to automatically provide a pool of IP addresses that are fetched by the DHCP server and later on assigned to each DHCP key when entering the network. TFTP Server – TFTP is a protocol for transferring files through a network to other computers (PXE), used primarily for handling boot images. Samba Server – a file and print server designed for Linux/Unix and closely cooperating with Windows that allows to operate on the same exact files, regardless of the previously mentioned platforms. There are only two requirements for remote applications: Supported operating system: Debian 9 "Stretch" EasyDCIM (master) must be accessible from a remote (slave) application in order to synchronize the data How to install OS in autonomous locations As was already stated before, EasyDCIM will serve as your main (master) application. Now imagine you run two locations - one in London and the other one in New York. The devices in your London facility work in the 10.10.10.0/24 subnetwork, whilst those in New York in the 192.168.56.0/24 subnetwork. As for both locations you will need separate DHCP and TFTP servers, the next step is to install in each data center a remote application (slave) that already has DHCP, TFTP and Samba servers built into it. The remote application works on port 8080 and listens to the master EasyDCIM application for commands (EasyDCIM adds only relevant tasks to its database). An example of such a task may be as follows: "Start X system installation on Y device in London location". The remote applications set up in New York and London check every five seconds if there are any new orders from EasyDCIM. The New York location will find no instructions to carry on with, but the application in London will immediately begin the process of OS installation soon upon detecting the task. In other words, each slave application has to communicate with the master device only, independently of one another. Benefits of master/slave architecture model Unlimited remote application installations and no need to worry that the main thread may have insufficient amount of available resources Mutual separation of multiple locations No time-consuming and elaborate switch/router configuration Much greater security when compared to protocols like IPMI which often goes beyond the natural and strict firewall Determined to maintain your locations isolated, but still want to be able to exert full control over each of them, without wasting any of your precious time on advanced setups? Master/slave applications finally featured in our system will bring a powerful boon to the supervision of your extensive data center network, and yet at the minimum effort. To see also what other improvements our newly kicked off EasyDCIM 1.5.3 update has to amaze you with, pay a visit to our previous Blog article!

Starting today’s post with a little trip into the past, we believe our several previous releases to be the best testament to the completely fresh approach we have taken towards the continued development of our control panel. The direction of which we are immensely proud because it is dictated in large part by the people having most experience with EasyDCIM, that is you dear customers! And so, per your special request, we are back with the release of EasyDCIM v1.5.3 that makes remote OS installation in dispersed and separate locations your new real! Automated OS installation in multiple locations While benefits derived from fully automated OS installation have been already discussed in one of our previous articles, the possibility to remotely set up a desired operating system in other independent locations and subnets through EasyDCIM is a brand-new feature and thus deserves a more detailed mention. As from the 1.5.3 version, EasyDCIM guarantees flawless support for remote applications (called slaves) that can be installed in selected locations around the world to carry out the exact tasks issued by the master application (EasyDCIM in our case). Following the freshly implemented Remote Provisioning Module, end-to-end OS installation on a server located in another country and operating within a totally different subnet than EasyDCIM, is now one of those processes that can be easily ordered from the EasyDCIM panel, sparing you the hassle of advanced switch or router configuration. Loving your newly gained powers already? Hang on in there – the list of improvement continues on! Raising the bar of Admin Experience Among the most crucial aspects directly affecting Admin Experience in any piece of software is always the integrity of its interface – how well various functions are organized, how accessible and intuitive they are, and how much time you need to spend on navigating through its different sections. Bearing this mind, we have done a thorough refreshment of our tool so that it could serve your needs even better on so many different levels. Apart from numerous adjustments focused around UI, we have also smoothed the working of several forms such as SNMP Device Settings, IPMI Device Settings, Quick Create Device, or Quick Create Item. Other components that made it on the list of our extras include: Capability to start a new noVNC session for the JAVA KVM console from the client area Widget with informative statistics on particular reports BMC Cold Reset option using the IPMI protocol now available to the client A list of practical shortcuts leading to official video guides available on our YouTube channel that will vary depending on the EasyDCIM section you are at the moment. With each new EasyDCIM update, we do our best not to fall into such traps where we focus on the big picture so much that smaller, but no less important details slip our attention completely. Hopefully, we have managed to pinpoint at least a portion of the elements that still needed some tweaks done here and there, and successfully make them an integral part of the 1.5.3 release. Be sure to expect more in the future updates as well! View The Changelog! Eager to broaden your knowledge on the ever-so-exciting topic of automated OS installation through slave applications? Keep your eyes peeled for our upcoming article where all the secrets will be revealed! UPDATE (Dec 13th): The article describing our new master/slave architecture model is ready! See also: Unattended OS Installation and Windows Servers OS Installation in EasyDCIM!