Podcast #101: James Martin Talks About Adding Intelligence to Infrastructure

This week, Brian connected with Eaton’s Global Connectivity Product Manager, James Martin, to talk about managing the products that Eaton builds. James has been with Eaton for over ten years and brings his product management skills and deep understanding of the importance of cybersecurity. Eaton has a significant portfolio of software management tools to help customers with disaster avoidance, data center infrastructure management, and demand response management, and has been delivering a mobile app, Control Xpert, helping manage those PDUs from anywhere.

Building intelligence into the PDU makes sense, but it is generally overlooked with all the cyber attacks directed at servers and systems. However, hacking into a PDU and shutting down entire racks can prove devastating. File corruption, getting systems back online, and bringing power back to a normal state can take hours, which could turn into days. This is just another example of ransomware attackers controlling your server environment.

It is an interesting conversation and should get you thinking about protecting your data all the way to the plug.

Take a look at this podcast to gain insight into how Eaton is working to protect the data center.

00:00 Introduction

What is Eaton doing with software development
Monitoring activities and connected devices
Making PDUs intelligent
Connected technologies
Security

05:00 Gathering information

Ransomware attacks more than the server and storage
How does Eaton protect access
Eatons scope of access

10:00 Power devices are becoming a desirable target

Eaton history behind connectivity
Levels of vulnerability
Educating the masses

15:00 What is the threat?

Working with customers to create an air gap

20:00 Integration and automation

Physical vs. virtual
The steps to bring a UPS back online
Monitoring outside the PDU

25:00 Types of probes

Edge scenarios
- Brings more complexity
- More devices to manage
- More locations to manage
- Grouping management tools
- Difficulty to access

30:00 Next steps

Emphasis
Robust monitoring
Ability to adjust settings
Creating maintenance models
Advanced automation
Steps to making fewer mistakes

35:00 Eaton is making power more visible

Partnering with other platforms
- vSphere
- VxRail
Costs of management
Customer attachment rate
Making it easy to add devices

40:00 Wrap up. https://youtu.be/dPo_inalXfw

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2 years ago

Harold Fritts

I have been in the tech industry since IBM created Selectric. My background, though, is writing. So I decided to get out of the pre-sales biz and return to my roots, doing a bit of writing but still being involved in technology.