runIP also allows you to maintain the VitalQIP® configuration for existing runIP appliances centrally. Even the underlying operating system is updated via the management solution, without you having to be on site.
The entire Management Station is operated via an intuitive Web GUI. All communication between the Management Station and appliances is encrypted, so that sensitive configuration data is protected when transmitted via the intranet or internet.
Every time you want to update your VitalQIP® installation, you benefit from the management solution specially developed for runIP. Using the central runIP Management Station, you can define which services run on which machines and exactly which versions of VitalQIP®, DNS server and DHCP server should be used in each instance. The packages required for this are sent to you promptly via the internet as part of the annual subscription service.
Definition and activation can also be done at the level of previously defined groups and pairs, which means even less work.
Appliances can either be managed individually or grouped together, which means that upgrading an entire group requires the same amount of effort as upgrading a single appliance. The HA pair is a special group, which in turn can be integrated into higher-level groups, leaving you free to define your management hierarchy.
One unique feature of the Management Station is its ability to retain past versions of the various software packages for groups and individual appliances, and restore them if needed at the click of a mouse. This allows you to carefully undo changes that have already been made, if they don’t prove successful in practice.
runIP provides flexible rights assignment based on administrative roles. For example, you can define for each role and for particular appliances whether an administrator is authorised to boot the appliance, change settings and perform upgrades. Different administrators can be assigned any number of roles. So it’s easy to create individual rights profiles that meet operational requirements.
The changes made in the GUI are recorded in an audit log. That means you can trace at any time when particular changes were made, and by whom.
In addition to DHCP failover – which is available by default – the use of runIP appliances in pairs offers the option of establishing a high availability DNS service by automatically adopting a logical IP address, if the appliances are employed as an HA bundle (HA-DNS).
This feature minimises or eliminates delays in name resolution caused by timeouts on clients.
