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Raritan Makes Dean's List at One of the Largest Universities in the Southeast
Founded in 1912 as a teacher training college, The
University of Memphis has become one of the largest
universities in the southeast United States. The
University offers bachelor's degrees in more than 50
majors and 70 concentrations, master's degrees in 47
subjects and doctoral degrees in 23 disciplines, including
information technology, international studies, performing
arts, public health and undergraduate education. Located
in a residential section of Memphis, the University of
Memphis campus is situated on 1,160 acres with nearly
200 buildings.
According to Robert Jackson, Systems Administrator,
University of Memphis, the IT department was faced
with the challenge of managing the 41 servers that
support production and development-level applications
used by various administrative units spread across a
sprawling campus environment. One particularly
daunting task was managing different levels of access to
servers and network devices for the different user groups.
"As the University has
expanded, so have our IT
needs in accessing and
controlling the growing
number of servers on the
Wintel platform,"
Jackson said. "The old
model of having bulky
cables for these systems
became unmanageable
over a period of time.
We needed a scalable
KVM solution that
could grow with us."
Jackson did his homework on KVM vendors and chose
Raritan. After seeing a trade ad, he researched and
found that Raritan had won several awards for its
KVM products. For further confirmation of his
decision, Jackson went online to public forums to chat
with other universities about their KVM solutions.
His research in these forums identified Raritan as the
ideal solution.
Jackson selected Raritan's award winning Paragon®
with Cat5 SimplicityTM, adding the TeleReach® remote
access option. Jackson's configuration consists of one
Paragon, one TeleReach, and two user stations.
Jackson has one user station for local console access in
the server room and the other one works with the
TeleReach unit for remote access. "The Raritan
solution enables us to manage our network devices
without having to physically travel to the server room.
TeleReach also gives us the ability to see the boot-up
sequence from our desks, rather than having to be at
the local console," he said.
Jackson also uses TeleReach to build and rebuild his
servers. "We were looking for a solution that enables
multiple systems administrators to access the KVM
switches simultaneously," said Jackson. "TeleReach
enables us to easily maintain and build our servers,
since more than one system administrator has access
to them at the same time." Jackson also addressed his
user access issues using Paragon's built-in user
authorization schemes. With this tool, Jackson can set
the levels and types of access for each user or group of
users, regardless of where they are on campus. For
added security, Jackson has chosen to give only select
users authorization to access the servers remotely via
TeleReach.
The University of Memphis has been live and troublefree
with the Paragon solution since March. When
one minor set up issue did arise, Jackson was impressed
with the level of technical support provided by Raritan.
"We were impressed with how the Raritan tech support
rep walked us through the steps to resolve the situation
by changing the configuration settings. These changes
resulted in an excellent, out-of-the-box experience," he
said.
In addition to decreasing the cables in their racks,
Jackson has seen significant improvements in the
efficiency and effectiveness of his IT operations since
installing the Paragon solution. In particular, by
allowing remote access to his KVM switch, multiple
systems administrators can access the KVM switch
simultaneously. This reduces the amount of time they
spend in the server room.
As its operations continue to grow in size and
complexity, the University of Memphis expects to
expand its current KVM configuration. In fact,
Jackson is already outgrowing his first Paragon and
just purchased another one to link the products
together. He also plans on using the Paragon
Computer Interface Modules (CIMs) that provide
seamless access to any server, independent of the
platform or connection. "The unique design of the
CIMs provides us with the flexibility to disconnect the
server from the KVM switch without rebooting the
NT4/W2K environment to detect the
keyboard/mouse," said Jackson.
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The University of Memphis
One of the largest universities in the
Southeast needed a scalable KVM solution
offering multi-user access and remote access
capability.
Raritan's Paragon KVM switch plus
remote access via TeleReach.
The University of Memphis cut costs and
improved the effectiveness of IT operations,
with remote access to KVM switches,
multiple systems administrators accessing
KVM switches simultaneously, and reduction
of time spent in the server room.
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