Apcon hopes its new Titan appliance, a pre-configured rack-mount server with integrated network management software, will provide a cost-effective and hassle-free way for IT managers to connect and control their network devices.

The device is used for two main purposes: to remotely move and share enterprise monitoring equipment and security appliances such as sniffers and probes; and to automate test labs for computer, networking and software companies.

"Installing software often takes days to set up and configure properly," Mark Holmes, director of sales at Apcon, said. "What we've tried to do is eliminate that facet because people want to use the software right out of the gate."

The pre-loaded Titan software is based on devices rather than port numbers. This enables, Holmes said, IT staff to wire network infrastructure once, and then remotely, electronically and securely control the device connectivity via a Microsoft Vizio-like topology diagram.

"You can literally drag devices onto the canvas and simply draw a line between those devices to make a connection," Holmes said. "This is a departure from a more cumbersome, time-consuming, hard-to-understand system toward an industry standard system. It also eliminates the need to manually patch or re-patch, make physical connections or do any re-wiring by hand."

Holmes also said that in addition to the low price point (estimated at around US$10,000), IT managers can expect a significant hardware cost reduction because the Titan helps customers utilize monitoring devices more effectively over the network, which may reduce the total number of devices required.