The German manufacturer Guntermann & Drunck (G&D) has announced its participation in the Airport Show Dubai. The Airport Show is one of the largest airport events for construction, operation, technology and services in the world. G&D experienced success at this year’s ATC/Amsterdam in showing its KVM product portfolio to the professionals in the Middle East. Being close to the ANSPs and ATCOs the German manufacturer matches their special needs with its portfolio.
What does G&D present at the Airport Show?
There are two sectors G&D serves with its solutions. The first one is dedicated to the broadcasting of video and audio signals. Extending and switching computer signals has always been the core strength of G&D. That includes bringing the content from one source to different outputs like public information displays in waiting halls.
The second sector is dedicated to the special needs of mission critical applications in the ATCO’s daily work. Besides its wide product range from KVM switches over matrix switches up to extenders, G&D presents extenders especially designed for the demanding computer applications in the ATC environment. These KVM products hold a variety of monitoring possibilities at devices’ breakdowns and for respective support.
Space and safety for the ATCO’s workplace
Space limitations, avoiding computer emissions and easy computer access are some of the main factors for removing computers from the controller’s desk into a separate plant room by use of KVM extenders.
As safety is paramount in ATC, monitoring the IT enabling the ATCO’s work can be essential to prevent blackouts or decrease down-times for maintenance. Prevention instead of remedy is focussed upon by G&D.
G&D’s KVM devices enable the anticipatory intervention of the administrator by keeping him informed about system status – either as a passive information by a syslog entry or an active notification by SNMP. Redundancy in power as well as fallback concepts is one more topic on G&D’s list of safety.
How does KVM work in detail?
KVM solutions extend standard computer interfaces in real-time over existing cable infrastructure without any loss in quality. The transmission is not based on a network protocol but can be carried out over the existing structured cabling – either over CAT cable or fibre optics. Depending on the cable medium in use distances up to 10,000m can be bridged.
The computer’s external interfaces are connected to the extender’s transmitter unit. Keyboard, monitor and mouse are connected to the receiver. The user is then able to access and operate the remote computer in real-time regardless of the distance. The extenders carry out the setup independently and automatically. Optionally, RS232, USB and audio signals can be transmitted in addition to KVM signals.
In ATC the products support high resolutions for current display technologies like dual-link DVI for standard or multi-head graphics adapters. In combination with KVM switches or matrix switches the efficiency of KVM installations can be increased further. Instead of having a dedicated local console for each transmitter, all transmitters can be connected to one KVM switch, thus enabling centralized control by one console only.