Default usernames and passwords are significant security vulnerabilities on any internet facing device. It’s a…
Meet Admiral – an on-premise MikroTik Fleet Management Solution.
The RemoteWinBox Team recently launched Admiral as a Fleet Management solution for Small Businesses, Internet Service Providers and IT Consultants who utilize MikroTik routers. Admiral provides all the premium features of RemoteWinBox, pre-configured and shipped in an on-premise 1U appliance for your data center or co-lo.
Our team worked with a small Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP) in a pilot program to study the benefits of the Admiral solution. This provider operates two data centers with
three upstream Internet providers. There are 367 MikroTik routers providing services to thousands of residential customers and dozens of commercial business subscribers.
Here are a couple ways Admiral saved them time and effort managing their MikroTik Network.
Updating Firmware
After adding Admiral to the WISP data center, orchestration tasks like automating firmware updates during a maintenance window saved hours of manual effort and allowed staff to be engaged and focused on the other aspects of their workload that generate revenue and add new services.
By automating firmware updates, the WISP is saving an estimated $2,446 annually.
This calculation is based on: 367 MikroTik routers * 2 minutes of updates per router * quarterly updates <4 per year> * loaded labor rate hourly wage of $50/hour. (367 * 2 * 4 / 60 = 48.9 hours * $50/hr = $2,446)
“Automated firmware updates have been great. It used to take lots of planning and several maintenance windows to update MikroTiks, but now I just pick a tag and schedule the update and Admiral just does it in the middle of the night. What used to take hours now takes seconds.”
DNS Mass Updates to Entire Network Made Easy with Fleet Commander
The WISP was transitioning from upstream provider leased IPv4 space to their own ARIN acquired AS and prefixes. They needed to update every network element to use new DNS servers. The DHCP devices were of no concern, since a single update to the DHCP server covered all DNS changes dynamically on the next lease renewal. However, the majority of MikroTiks were statically configured and had hard coded DNS server entries.
“We contacted Admiral support and asked about mass updating the DNS on our MikroTiks and they gave us the commands and showed us how to use Fleet Commander to get ‘er done. It turned out to be really easy.”
Interested in how Admiral could help your business? Contact our sales team at sales@remotewinbox.com to learn more.