AMEYA360:How ABB Is Getting Ahead of Network Outages

　　Issues tend to crop up at the worst possible time. Network engineers know this all too well. This is just one reason why it’s critical to have a reliable out-of-band management solution available when you experience a network outage.

　　Network engineers already understand the many factors that could cause a disruption: Hardware failures cause 34%, human errors cause another 21.5%, and hacks or security breaches bring another 18.7%.

　　Matt Witmer, Senior Principal Engineer, Opengear

　　Regardless of an outage’s root cause, every minute of downtime is costly. A recent survey of global managers, directors, VPs and executives found the average amount lost due to network outages is roughly $13,000 per minute — and that’s just the financial element. Damage to a company’s reputation, stress put on IT professionals rushing to fix the problem, dissatisfied customers — and the corresponding fallout from each — all represent significant costs as well.

　　Consider the case of ABB, a leading global industrial technology company with a comprehensive portfolio of products in the robotics and electronics spaces. ABB was recently looking for a reliable out-of-band solution to monitor and secure its network and the numerous AIoT devices connected to it. The modernization was much needed, as the company had previously relied on 56Kbps modems and analog telephone lines to provide 24/7 connectivity to multiple physical locations, including data centers, distribution centers, manufacturing facilities and sales offices. So, any disruption would result in lost business, service interruptions and poor customer service experiences.

　　ABB’s U.S. network and voice services team was tasked with overseeing the upgrade, opting for Opengear solutions, starting with our ACM7000 Resilience Gateways. These products provide in-band and out-of-band access to AIoT devices. Providing secure, out-of-band remote access at edge locations, thanks to an embedded, global 4G-LTE cellular modem that provides an alternate path when the primary link is down, the gateways were deployed at different ABB facilities, with the 4-port versions going to manufacturing sites. Our eight-port gateways were placed at ABB’s distribution centers to ensure business continuity. Finally, for its data centers, ABB chose our 48-port CM7100 Console Server, which offers 16-96 serial console ports with simple straight-through cabling to Cisco-style serial consoles, ideal for large compute locations.

　　Not long after a successful deployment of our advanced routers, modems and remote-management tools, ABB experienced a network outage during a standard data center migration from one circuit carrier to another. ABB’s IT team was able to quickly access the data center network with new, out-of-band management capabilities, keeping downtime to a minimum and keeping AIoT devices secure.

　　Since the initial rollout, ABB has added more Opengear devices in its network. Today, the company has hundreds of them across two data centers, two distribution centers, plus its manufacturing sites and sales offices — all in the name of business continuity and AIoT device security.

　　ABB is now able to remotely monitor, safeguard against and repair network outages when they occur. As a result, the company ensures its IoT devices are securely connected and minimizes costly downtime.