A majority of colocation providers will limit you to accessing the servers that you have hosted with them through Remote Desktop or SSH only and this can introduce issues for server administrators that require greater control of their server, such as the BIOS configuration. ESDS provides colocation solutions that offer KVMoIP access so that you have full control of your hardware from a remote location so that you don’t have to be present in the data center to perform tasks that require a greater level of access to the server. The issue with Remote Desktop and SSH access is that both of these services are reliant on several services being up on the server along with the server being booted into the operating system, whereas KVMoIP services run independently of the server so that you can control of your server as if you were controlling it directly.

Why is access to collocation equipment different to that of dedicated servers?

You are the owner of the equipment that you collocate with a web hosting provider, which means that you have every right to want full access to every aspect of your servers. Dedicated servers always remain the property of the web hosting company that you purchase them from because you are only leasing them, therefore meaning that web hosting companies rarely let dedicated server customers have any access to their dedicated server beyond SSH or Remote Desktop access to the operating system that the server is running. Collocation is recommended for businesses that are looking to develop servers with a custom configuration from the bare metal upwards.

Mount Local Devices on the Remote Server

Using KVMoIP you can mount devices that are local to you over the internet on your remote server, allowing the server to view and access hard drives and other devices as if they were connected directly to it. When managing a server remotely you may have reason to copy over files or other content that is located on the your desktop machine, but using other upload methods such as FTP that can prove to be unsecure may not represent the best option available; if your local hard drives are mounted remotely then accessing these files can be done in a more secure manner, whilst the transfer feeds are going to be far greater than any other protocols available for this purpose.

Independent Management

KVMoIP can offer server administrators a lot more independence with the management of their hardware because they will be able to perform a majority of operations that would otherwise need to be completed by on-site staff, remotely. If there ever comes a time when you need to reinstall the OS on your collocated server then this can be achieved through KVMoIP as you will be able to follow the process much in the same way as you would if you were installing an OS on a desktop computer; other tasks that can be completed in this manner include the rebooting of your hardware and the modification of BIOS settings.

KVMoIP vs. Remote Access

Remote access protocols such as SSH and Remote Desktop are ideal for situations where you only require access to the operating itself and these can be very fast and efficient ways in which a majority of server maintenance tasks can be completed. KVMoIP access grants users of a more technical background greater access to their own hardware so that advanced configuration changes can be made so that they can improve the performance of their servers. In either case you will be able to access your server using either Mac OSX or Microsoft Windows on your desktop computer – Remote Desktop isn’t available on Linux.

Support

If KVMoIP ever fails to meet your needs then our 24×7 support team are always on hand to provide you with assistance where necessary and can reboot your server for your manually as our NOC team are present at our data center around the clock. eMagic access is also provided so that you can manage your KVMoIP settings and view usage statistics for your collocated servers; eMagic also provides the facility to control the state of your server so that you can force your own reboots if necessary.