Opengear, a leading provider of critical infrastructure management solutions through advanced console servers, remote management, monitoring, and cellular out-of-band products, recently announced the development of Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP) capabilities across Opengear products. ZTP enables automated provisioning of configuration to newly deployed Opengear appliances over the network, without the need for manual user interaction. With the recently released firmware version 3.15.1, Opengear is the first in the industry to offer ZTP as part of out-of-band management solutions.
ZTP is an automation solution that is designed to reduce errors and save time. The development of this capability was a direct response to customer requests. As large scale Opengear deployments have started to require faster and more flexible implementation options, Opengear reacted quickly with ZTP. The primary benefit of ZTP is not requiring any manual intervention other than connecting the appliance to the network and powering it on. This “rack and go” deployment process helps to standardize configuration and security policies, manage instances where large numbers of units are involved, and automate as much of the deployment work as possible.
Leveraging DHCP, ZTP also supports bulk provisioning of OPG config templates, making it possible to provision complete appliance configs or site specific templates (NTP, SNMP, serial settings), provision Lighthouse (Opengear’s centralized management system) pre-authorization to automate enrollment for ongoing access, control and config management, and to provision custom boot scripts (/etc/config/rc.local) to support advanced deployment scenarios. Using XML config format (/etc/config/config.xml) allows for simpler deployments and config updates on the fly.
“Automation and the ability to rack, stack, and provision network appliances in minutes make ZTP a capability we’re excited to add to the Opengear product suite,” said Gary Marks, President, Opengear. “By making deployment of equipment a much less manual process, network administrators are able to save time and reduce errors. Opengear is proud to be first in offering ZTP for implementing out-of-band management solutions.”
Opengear solutions also offer a similar Low Touch Provisioning option wherein the OPG config file is loaded via a USB stick. Post-enroll scripts can be used as well to complement a paste of config commands where ZTP is not practical, limit the amount of settings in the OPG, and assure configuration and security compliance.
