A Customer Success
from the Experts in
Business-Critical ContinuityTM.
Swift, Simple and Secure Server Access and Service
As a leading provider of global corporate travel management, BCD Travel simplifies
and streamlines the business of getting people from point A to B and back again.
It combines its global strength with local service to offer an integrated technology
infrastructure that provides intelligent analysis of business travel data, allowing
companies to maximize the return on their corporate travel investment. To facilitate
the management and high availability of the data centers and servers that power
that technology infrastructure, BCD Travel leverages MergePoint Unity KVM
appliances and DSViewTM 3 Management Software from Avocent.
Anytime, Anywhere Access
Company
BCD Travel
Location
Atlanta, Georgia
Industry
Corporate Travel
Business Needs
Faster and easier access to geographically
distributed data centers and servers for
maintenance and servicing
Solutions
Avocent MergePoint UnityTM KVM over IP
Appliance
Avocent DSViewTM 3 Management
Software
Business Benefits
• Faster anytime, anywhere access and
problem resolution to geographically
distributed servers
• Increased server uptime and time
savings due to faster service response
• Thousands of dollars saved due to
reduced travel costs
• Simplified management of servers
through a single pane of glass
• Enhanced data center and server
security
BCD Travel has data centers in multiple locations in Atlanta and Kansas City, as well as
server rooms at several other remote sites in Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, Dallas,
Jacksonville and Costa Rica. Even though its IT team works normal office hours Monday
through Friday, team members are on-call around the clock on both weekdays and
weekends. If a server encounters a problem after hours, or even at a remote location
that doesn’t have any IT personnel, the IT team needs to be able to quickly access
that server to resolve the problem. The Avocent solutions give BCD that fast anytime,
anywhere access that it needs.
“Since we have so many remote sites domestically and
overseas, being able to use Avocent to centrally access all
our servers has become invaluable. It’s very reliable, easy to
use and extremely powerful. Avocent has been a great help
to our business.”
– Christopher Cillo, Senior Infrastructure Support SE, BCD Travel
“The Avocent KVMs and DSView 3 software is invaluable,” says Christopher Cillo,
Senior Infrastructure Support SE for BCD Travel. “Whether a server is hung waiting on a
F1 or we can’t access it for some other reason using RDP, we can always get to it using
the Avocent KVM and DSView 3 management console. Since Avocent gives us access
to the server at the BIOS level, no matter what condition that server is in we can always
correct the problem remotely. Even if it’s a problem with the network card going to the
server, we can still access it using the KVM’s out-of-band capabilities.”
That ability to remotely access over IP all of its servers not only facilitates after-hours
servicing, but it saves BCD significant time with daily maintenance. That results
in higher availability and increased productivity. “In terms of reducing downtime,
Avocent is invaluable,” Cillo says. “The Avocent solutions definitely enable faster
response times for accessing servers that might not be accessible via RDP, which
ultimately results in less down time. Of course, that faster access also saves our people
time too, giving them more time for their other responsibilities.”
A Customer Success
from the Experts in
Business-Critical ContinuityTM.
The MergePoint Unity KVM appliances also eliminate significant travel
costs that BCD would otherwise be required to pay in order to maintain its
servers at its remote offices. “Some of our remote offices don’t actually
have any technical people on site,” Cillo says. “Three or four times a
quarter a server issue might occur at one of those remote sites. The
Avocent KVM appliances and DSView 3 software let us see what’s going
on and take care of them without having to send someone out on a plane.
That saves us several thousands of dollars a year.”
Single Pane of Glass
In addition to saving time and money, the Avocent DSView 3
Management Software simplifies management of BCD’s data centers and
remote servers. It consolidates into a single interface all the data center
management functionality that BCD needs, giving it centralized access
and control over all of its IT assets.
“Having all the servers available and accessible from one central location
has made things a whole lot easier for us,” Cillo says. “We no longer have
to look around for different ways to access a certain server if it goes down.
It saves us a lot of time and frustration by being able to just go to the
DSView window and access the server that we need.”
Cillo adds, “DSView is very user friendly. It’s pretty much point and click.
It’s so simple to add a new device to our KVM environment. We can even
label each server or device through the interface. It couldn’t be any easier.
Almost anybody can do it.”
BCD also takes advantage of the Avocent Digital Access KVM module,
which essentially allows it to embed KVMs in its Dell® servers. This further
adds to its ability to consolidate management of its servers and devices
from within the DSView 3 interface. “The DSView console gives us one
pane of glass,” Cillo says. “It gives us the look and feel of a dashboard that
allows us to see everything in the same way. We don’t have to deal with
the DRAC window for the Dell servers. All we need to know is DSView and
that makes it all real simple.”
Increased Security and Productivity
The Avocent KVM appliances also minimize the number of people
that need to physically enter the BCD data centers or physically access
the company’s remote servers. That helps increase security as well as
improves productivity of those who need to access the servers.
“We have about twenty engineers and developers who work in other
buildings or from home that need to be able to access our servers,” Cillo
says. “We can use their Active Directory credentials or set them up with
Avocent credentials within DSView to give them access to specific servers
via the KVM appliances. They no longer have to travel to the data center
and physically access the server. It’s not only very convenient, but it saves
considerable time and travel. We’ve even been able to give server access
to one of our consultants in India. It’s pretty amazing.”
The inherent security aspects of the Avocent solutions are also helping
BCD with its PCI compliance initiatives. Using Avocent DSView 3 and
the MergePoint Unity KVM appliances it will create an isolated KVM
environment specifically for those servers that need to be PCI compliant.
Both physical and KVM access to those servers will be restricted to those
individuals with authorized PCI responsibility.
Talking in general about the Avocent solutions, Cillo says, “Since we
have so many remote sites domestically and overseas, being able to use
Avocent to centrally access all our servers has become invaluable. It’s very
reliable, easy to use and extremely powerful. Avocent has been a great
help to our business.”
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