When an “air gap” isn’t enough

The remote nature of offshore drilling platforms used to ensure the safety of their networks from the world wide web with three W's of another sort: a physical barrier of waves, wind and water. On-board, the "air gap" between vessel control systems, process control systems and data networks is shrinking as these become increasingly linked [...]

Even if it ain’t broke, you might fix it

Some of the famous last words in IT are, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." They define the two sides of a coin toss: one side keeps idle hands from causing problems messing with things that should be left alone, while the other side can often perpetuate ______ (software, hardware, processes...) that end up [...]

Don’t fight the power, manage it

Power management is a critical part of network IT and has two main components: managing and monitoring power throughout the infrastructure, and having the ability to control outlets and groups of outlets. For Uplogix, managing power to devices is a key component of Local Management. Some of the key functionality includes: Power utilization monitoring | [...]

Wrapping up, looking forward

It's that time of year - people are publishing their year-end recaps and prognostications for the year to come, office junk is being collected and wrapped for white elephant exchanges, and (some) folks are burning off vacation before the end of the calendar year.  We'll cover each of these topics in this post. You can [...]

What’s in the new LMS v4.7 release?

The newest release of the Uplogix Local Management Software (LMS) is now available, delivering support for a DC version of the Uplogix 5000 targeted at data center applications, new hardware support and several new advanced drivers for third-party products. The DC-powered Uplogix 5000 Local Manager (LM) has dual 48V DC power supplies, but otherwise has [...]

M2M Management Case Study: ATMs

Increasingly, automated teller machines are the “brick and mortar” point of contact for customers with their bank. For decades, these M2M systems have been popular with customers and increasingly reliable as the technology has advanced, but also complicated and expensive to support. One Uplogix customer has an aggressive plan to deploy ATMs and chose to [...]

Amazon’s PrimeAir faces the automation checklist

In a 60 Minutes interview that relatively few people actually saw, but many are now reading about, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos showed off a couple of Amazon delivery drones. The idea is that at some point in the future, one of these eight-rotor robots would fly a <5 lb. Amazon purchase to you in 30 [...]

Internet on the high seas a requirement for cruise line

Uplogix provides automated device control and recoverythat is especially useful for maintaining satelliteconnectivity and network uptime aboard cruise ships. Spanish cruise line Pullmantur Cruises recently signed a new deal with Uplogix customer MTN Communications to enhance connectivity options for passengers ad crew onboard its fleet of ships. The expansion of broadband satellite services is just [...]

NIST cybersecurity framework development continues

NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, held its fifth public workshop last week in Raleigh, North Carolina on a comprehensive cybersecurity framework mandated in a February 2012 executive order. The framework is designed to improve cybersecurity across sixteen critical infrastructure industries and build up from a basic core of functions based around the [...]

How BYOD Can Benefit IT Departments

Bringing your own device to work is increasingly becoming not just an option, but a requirement. Gartner predicts by 2016, 38 percent of companies will no longer supply devices to workers, and by 2017, half of employers will expect employees to bring their own equipment. IT departments, however, have been slower to adopt BYOD due [...]