Out-of-band management for Cisco ISR

Summary

Out-of-band management has long been used to access a remote site or device, as a way to monitor, restore service or determine an issue affecting service. In the past, the most popular method of out-of-band access was the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network), via analog POTS lines (Plain Old Telephone Service) or ISDN lines (Integrated Switched Digital Network). Dial-up modems or ISDN equipment attached to remote site devices would accept incoming calls from an administrator at the main site. These lines are still in common use today.

Challenge

Legacy connection methods for out-of-band management are subject to slow connection speeds, high monthly recurring charges. Moreover, aging modems are vulnerable & unreliable making the whole remote access solution undependable. As a result, Network managers need a better option for infrastructure out-of-band management.

Solution

The most reliable option for remote site monitoring is having a certified network technician on-site at all times, though in most cases costs of doing so are too large to justify. Most commonly such engineers are hired by dedicated businesses offering technical support services which delegate their technical engineers on-demand to the location of client’s infrastructure in case the main router is unreachable over its wired Internet connection. In the majority of cases, a simple reboot or configuration change is needed. However, the costs of hiring a certified professional engineer to travel to a remote site, debug and solve a problem are significantly higher than upgrading existing PSTN infrastructure to reliable and secure remote access solution for out-of-band management.

Multi-megabit speeds, improved response times, wide coverage and flexibly priced LTE plans make 4G LTE a great option for upgrade - not only for out-of-band management but also for WAN backup.

Topology

Benefits

• Fast deployment – multiple RUT955s can be quickly preconfigured for out-of-band management using Teltonika RMS.
• Reduced network maintenance costs – even one on-site visit by a certified technical support engineer can be more expensive than installing a single RUT955 for out-of-band management.
• Support speed – a professional engineer can access the console interface of an ISR remotely immediately and resolve any arising issues avoiding time zone differences and traveling time to site.

Why Teltonika?

Teltonika RUT955 is a great option for out-of-band management because it features reliable LTE connectivity with double SIM failover functionality. This means that your infrastructure is always reachable even if one cellular provider fails. RUT955 is also compatible with Teltonika Remote Management System (RMS) which allows to easily monitor and manage all Teltonika routers remotely. Besides, you can reach console interface of the connected ISR router directly from Teltonika RMS to configure, debug and solve any issues.