SANDY, UT--(Marketwire - May 19, 2010) - Opengear (www.opengear.com), a leading provider of next generation console server and KVM over IP solutions, today announced that it is sponsoring PacketLife.net, a site that offers advice, training and a community lab for Cisco networking professionals.
PacketLife.net was founded as a site to help relatively inexperienced networking and IT professionals advance their careers. Employers often hire people with networking certifications, but these certifications can be very difficult to obtain without real-world experience. Additionally, the costs of training materials and certification exams add up quickly. PacketLife.net offers a free community site, filled with expert and user generated content that includes study notes, a Wiki, a forum and a recently launched community lab accessible over the Internet.
The PacketLife community lab, recently launched and found at http://packetlife.net/lab, provides free access to Cisco networking equipment for training purposes. Opengear provided the community lab the Opengear CM4116, a low-power 16-port console server running embedded Linux.
PacketLife's traffic has gained steadily over its first 2 years; it now gets 10s of thousands of unique visitors each month, becoming a key resource for young networking professionals.
"Many people starting out in networking have grown accustomed to deploying old Cisco 2511 routers as access servers for labs. While these might suffice for an individual, they're hardly a robust solution and simply unfit for a managed lab. For serious console access over IP, I needed something more," said Jeremy Stretch, founder of PacketLife. "It wasn't until I came across a line of console servers produced by Opengear that a free community lab became a real possibility. With Opengear's help, the community lab I had envisioned quickly became a reality."
Features that made the Opengear CM4000 console servers especially useful for the PacketLife Lab include:
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Customizability: Ability to write and run custom scripts
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Remote power controls: Remote PDU control for inline power cycling
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Security: Regex matching against the serial stream to trigger alerts
"Opengear's support of the PacketLife Lab shows our commitment to the Cisco community and belief in partnering with the network administrators who use the equipment in the real world," said Todd Rychecky, VP Sales and Marketing. "We believe Jeremy brings the Cisco networking market a unique way to educate network engineers who need the hands-on training to accelerate the learning process. That's why opengear.com links back to PacketLife's website -- it is a great resource for Opengear customers."
About Opengear
Opengear (http://www.opengear.com) designs and manufactures next-generation console server, power management and KVM over IP solutions for secure remote access and control of network devices such as routers, switches, servers, firewalls, uninterruptible power supplies, power distribution units and environmental monitoring devices in distributed networks. Opengear console servers are installed in more than 10,000 locations around the world. Opengear's open source platform gives network managers and system integrators the most flexible, extensible, console server solution on the market today for serial console ports, service processors, power solutions and environmental monitoring.
Contact Information:
Bret Clement
Opengear PR
303.462.3057