TelecomNewsroom interview with Steve Cummins, VP of Marketing for Opengear

Steve Cummins is Vice President of Marketing for Opengear, a company delivering secure, resilient access and automation to critical IT infrastructure, even when the network is down. Provisioning, orchestration and remote management of network devices, through innovative software and appliances, enables technical staff to manage their data centers and remote network locations reliably and efficiently. Opengear’s business continuity solutions are trusted by global organizations across financial, digital communications, retail and manufacturing industries. The company is headquartered in New Jersey, with R&D centers in Silicon Valley and Brisbane, Australia.

At Opengear, Cummins is responsible for leading the Marketing organization. He is an experienced B2B Marketer focused on technology products, with a particular emphasis on digital marketing, product messaging, and channel management.

Telecom Newsroom recently sat down with Cummins to discuss enterprise digital transformation, business solutions, the ONUG Digital Live Fall event and more.

Telecom Newsroom, Question (TNR-Q): Tell us — what does Opengear do?

Steve Cummins, Opengear, Answer (SC-A): Opengear is the leader in Network Resilience solutions and Out-of-Band management

TNR-Q: What is the one thing that differentiates Opengear within the industry?

SC-A: We’ve added NetOps automation to Out-of-Band management, creating a secure independent management plane. It’s the network for network engineers.

TNR-Q: What do you see as the biggest challenge facing enterprise networks today?

SC-A: The movement of devices and compute power out to the edge, away from highly-reliable data centers, means that the resilience of the network is now dependent on equipment at unmanned satellite locations. Customers expect their app or service to be identical no matter where it’s served from. So, enterprise networks must now be as reliable and well managed at every edge location as they always have been at the core data centers.

TNR-Q: In light of the COVID-19 global pandemic, what advice do you want to give to enterprise networks for consideration today or in the future?

SC-A: The pandemic has highlighted the challenges of relying on a “truck roll” or airplane ride to fix a problem. Now, the ability to remotely monitor and manage network devices becomes increasingly important. A smart, Out-of-Band management network provides secure remote access to any device at any location without sending an engineer to the site.

TNR-Q: How do you define digital transformation and what is Opengear doing to help enterprise businesses adapt more effectively?

SC-A: Digital transformation has driven much of the complexity of IT to the edge of the network, while at the same time broadening the expectations of that network. Users have become totally reliant on distributed networks and always-on access to the internet and to their applications. Enterprises must build the resilience to keep their networks running 24/7. Opengear provides a secure, reliable, independent management plane via an Out-of-Band network to manage the IT infrastructure, along with NetOps automation to streamline IT operations.

TNR-Q: What is the most important driver of change taking shape today?

SC-A: The widespread rollout of 5G will accelerate the digital transformation and increase the expectation of customers. With the expansion of streaming video, the ability to access high-bandwidth data and enterprise-level computing increasingly moving to the edge, the widespread adoption of 5G will put even greater strain on distributed networks. The overall health and resilience of the network will continue to be a driver of enterprise IT spending.

TNR-Q: What products or services are you most excited to share with the enterprise community at the ONUG Digital Live Fall event?

SC-A: Our NetOps console server is the only appliance that combines Out-of-Band and NetOps automation in a single device. It features an x86 CPU to run standard NetOps tools, and a TPM chip supporting a secure boot process.

TNR-Q: Thank you for your time. To learn more about Opengear, please visit www.opengear.com.