News in the Channel - issue #40

OPENGEAR

The value of trade shows for securing new business is well known in the channel – but it also pays to stay to the very end because you never know when you might have a conversation that proves the catalyst for a big contract. Dirk Schuma, sales manager EMEA North at Opengear, knows this only too well. He recounts a story about Opengear’s booth at the 2024 edition of Cisco Live Europe. In the last hour of the last day of the event, the Opengear team were thinking about packing up and heading home when Diogo Almeida, head of network, connectivity and infrastructure at AIDA Cruises (part of Carnival Cruises) stepped onto the stand. “He was looking at our portfolio, which we still had sitting there as a showcase and said, ‘This is what I need.’ I was like ‘Okay’ and we started talking,” says Dirk. Diogo explained that AIDA had 11 cruise ships that needed out-of-band connectivity as when the ships were out on the ocean, the team back on land had no way to access the IT equipment onboard. “On the ships, staff can make repairs if something fails hardware-wise or needs replacing, but they couldn’t do software patches or similar,” says Dirk. “He said it would be great if they could access those devices from their shore locations.” Smart solution Dirk knew that Opengear could provide the right solution. Two weeks after that initial conversation, Opengear sent over some demo equipment, and AIDA downloaded the company’s Lighthouse centralised management platform. Then, following some technical sessions with AIDA’s networking team, within another two weeks Opengear’s Smart Out-of- Band solution was running on a test ship. Tests were first run in dry dock, then on the ocean. “The Smart Out-of-Band solution does what they want,” says Dirk. “They

have two data centres on the boat and various IT rooms in different fire zones where they need to access the network equipment, switches and firewalls they have there. In a normal data centre accessing this equipment is easy via regular connectivity links, but with a ship in the middle of the ocean you need a Starlink connection to them.” Following the successful proof of concept, Dirk says the overall deployment to the whole fleet of 11 ships was completed within nine months of that first conversation. “They are now remotely managing their network equipment, and the AIDA team are super happy because they don’t need to send their network engineers around the world saving them time and money – not to mention the onboard cabins taken up by the AIDA team,” he adds. “They have access to the

Dirk Schuma

opengear.com

Opengear devices and the connected downstream equipment 24/7 and can install software patches and fix issues whenever necessary. They have access to every network and its equipment installed. Now, they are considering enlarging that solution to include the onboard entertainment, production and TV systems, which currently are not managed by Opengear.” To put the scale of the demands into context the smallest ship in the fleet supports nearly 16,000 operational IP devices, plus personal devices used by more than 2,000 passengers and 600 crew members.

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