January, 2005-- Using Microsoft’s Emergency Management Services APlus.Net has recently released their Smart Console system which allows access to a server in the event of low-level failures - bypassing stressed or overloaded top-level programs. For example, in the event of a server emergency, an administrator can reboot or shutdown the server, re-configure IP settings, list all processes or kill them, run text-based applications even in the event of a server that is not responding.
"In the event of a server emergency, our dedicated server customers can often fix the problem faster than they can report it by phone," said John Martis, Vice President of Operations at Aplus.Net. "The root-level access aspect of Smart Console takes server administration to the next level."
Smart Console takes advantage of EMS’s out-of-band connections — those using an alternate communication channel, most commonly a serial port. Unlike in-band connections, out-of-band connections do not rely on operating system network drivers to function.
If, for example, a Windows server hangs or is spiked at 100 percent CPU usage then this out-of-band connection is a backdoor to getting it rebooted or killing the process that’s spiking the machine. A huge time saver in contrast to driving down to a datacenter or trying to raise customer service to get them to click the reset button.
