Foreign Affairs to monitor global network with Opengear

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 12 February 2008 08:36

IT Industry - Strategy

Opengear, an Australian start-up specialising in open-source based appliance for remotely managing IT infrastructure, has scored a major win from Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Traded (DFAT) which will install over 200 Opengear console servers at all its posts in Australia and around the world to enable local IT gear to be remotely managed from Australia. DFAT has already rolled out eight Opengear CM4116 console servers and will complete the full 200 unit installation over the next three years. Opengear's products provide a highly secure communications link, in-band to enable each item to be managed by the appropriate system and, in the event of a failure of a main communications link, are able to provide out-of-band access using alternate links, such as dial up, to enable equipment to be monitored and controlled and if necessary rebooted or power cycled.

Opengear is the latest venture from Australian serial entrepreneur, Bob Waldie, who founded and subsequently sold, SnapGear and before that Stallion Technologies. The company is incorporated and headquartered in the US, where most of its sales are, but its R&D and product development is largely done in Brisbane.

Funding has come from a variety of investors, including 18 percent from a US east coast venture capitalist. "This keeps us plugged into the US venture funding fabric, which will be useful as me move to the next stage," Waldie said.

He claimed that the market Opengear has been set up to address is worth around $US1 billion annually - $US150m for console management, $US600M for IPMI/KVM (integrated platform management interface/remote keyboard, video and mouse) and $US100M for power management - largely untapped. Demand is being fuelled by the need to consolidate business data in a single location for security and compliance and the growing demand for low-cost lights out operations.

Opengear uses a direct sales approach in the US from sales offices on the east and west coast. It now sees Australia and the Asia Pacific region as a key market - telcos, MSPs and large enterprises -and is ramping up tis efforts locally having recently appointed Leanne Ramsay as vice president of sales for Asia Pacific, based in Sydney. She was most recently director - Australia and New Zealand for IT infrastructure management vendor, Avocent Corporation, an organisation she joined when it acquired her then employer, Cyclades. Ramsay said she had held discussion with a number of potential channel partners.