Not a Provider … a Partner!
March 19, 2008 by Aaron Conklin, Marketing in Servers and Solutions, Tech Stuff
Hi there, everyone. It’s been awhile, and in fact, this is only my second blog post. A great customer experience over the past few weeks prompted me to post, so I wanted to take a little time to relay it to you.
At The Planet, we’re not just a service provider — we’re also a customer of a several hardware, software and service vendors. Many of my recent projects have centered around our KVM offering, the Lantronix Spider KVM-over-IP unit. We’ve been searching for the best way to highlight the unique features and benefits of the Spider KVM that distinguish it from a standard KVM option.
We had a number of ideas — a demo unit, a demo video, etc. Lantronix really stepped up to the plate with an offer to produce a demo video that was custom-tailored to The Planet’s deployment of their hardware. I also deployed a demo unit that lets you see, first hand, how the Spider KVM unit functions in a real-world scenario.
Please take a moment to view the Lantronix Spider video. The Lantronix team did a really great job on short notice (it was probably seven days from concept to online publication), and it gives you a good feel for what the Spider KVM is all about.
While you’re at it, you can try out my demo KVM unit. By the way, Kevin told me that a few people have already checked out the KVM demo and requested a Windows demo box. I’m working on it. Thanks for the suggestion!
Back to my central thesis … It’s not just the work on the video: We just met with our account team and Lantronix executive management. Their openness to working with us, both to better promote their product and to build some of our user requirements back into their roadmap for future versions, was truly refreshing. More importantly, it reinforced in me the fact that we’re an important partner to all of our customers. We want to do what we can to make your business successful, so that we can grow along with you.
This is especially true within the Product Management team, since we are responsible for taking your needs and building them into our future releases. I look forward to hearing from you how we can improve our portfolio. Comment on the blog and let me know what you think.
-Aaron













March 19th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
The background music in the video sounds like it is out of “Chariots of Fire.”
March 19th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
I received mixed opinions regarding the music… but it really grew on me. I had to leave it in there.
March 23rd, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Guys…
Does this work on firefox?
March 24th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Hello Lami,
Yes, the Spider KVM is fully cross-browser compatible. As long as your browser accepts Java, the KVM will function correctly.
Aaron
March 31st, 2008 at 12:07 am
KVM over IP doesn’t depend on a software component running on the remote server. This gives us the remote interaction with base level BIOS settings and monitoring of the entire booting process before during and after the operating system loads. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
April 8th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Hi Aaron,
Thanks for the demo – this looks good.
Have you tried out the Virtual Media functionality. I’m particularly interested in how well using a local cdrom drive would work to build a remote server.
Thanks – Matt
April 8th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Hi there Matt,
It appears that the major question is if the server will keep power over USB during a reboot (or if the server build requires a reboot in the first place).
We’ve seen times where a loss of power to the KVM device will drop the remote CD connectivity, so the boot process has moved beyond the USB device by the time the Remote CD is functional again.
If a reboot isn’t required (especially for virtualized instances, etc) this has not been a problem.