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CHAPTER 2: PRODUCT OVERVIEW
Boxilla™ is a state-of-the-art KVM and AV/IT Manager designed to provide pro-active support to the System Manager and enable
efficient operation of KVM and AV systems. Its core focus is to provide simple mechanisms to discovery, configure, upgrade
and monitor the deployed systems. It provides insight into performance of the deployed system and alerts the System Manager
to potential performance or security issues. Comprehensive features include:
automatic search and detection of Black Box products (discovery),
device configuration across multiple sites,
configuration backup,
central upgrades,
performance and security statistics with user-defined triggers for alerts.
Using the intuitive Boxilla web-based interface, one or more administrators can manage potentially thousands of users who are
interacting with an almost unlimited number of devices. Boxilla operates as a self-contained compact server unit that can be
located anywhere within your network. Boxilla is supplied pre-loaded and is straightforward to deploy, requiring only a network
connection and a power input to begin operation.
The current version of Boxilla provides management of Black Box’s Emerald Unified KVM or InvisaPC system and Modular and
Compact DKM KVM Matrix Switches. The Emerald or InvisaPC system provides users with a seamless desktop experience
anywhere on a TCP/IP network, while allowing the actual hardware to be securely housed in a corporate data center or in the cloud.
Emerald or InvisaPC enables the same high-fidelity experience of a desktop PC even for media-rich applications, for example,
watching videos, photo editing with Photoshop or 3D design with AutoCAD. The remote desktops may be hosted on a physical PC
/ workstation or may be a virtual desktop hosted on a private server or in the cloud. The Emerald or InvisaPC system provides its
users with Receivers that communicate with target compute nodes (whether physical PC or virtual desktop) over a standard TCP/
IP network. Physical PCs/Workstations/Servers have an Emerald or InvisaPC Transmitter unit physically connected to provide
communication over the TCP/IP network. The performance of Emerald or InvisaPC allows them to be deployed on standard
corporate networks and even across Wide-Area-Networks (WANs).
Desktop users can use remote keyboard, mouse, video, audio, USB mass storage devices, headsets and other USB devices from
the Receiver unit to the remote PC/workstations or Virtual Desktop via the Emerald or InvisaPC system.
NOTE: References to the Emerald or InvisaPC system or Modular or Compact DKM KVM Switch systems in this document refer to
both Receivers and Transmitters.
An Emerald or InvisaPC system can be composed of just Receivers and Transmitters. In these types of systems—called
unmanaged— there is no central management. Each device needs to be configured individually and upgraded individually. Often to
keep the system in sync, the admin exports the configuration from one Receiver and imports it to all other Receivers using a USB
Flash Drive.
For larger configurations, a central manager is needed—Boxilla. Boxilla operates as a central manager for a “managed domain.”
A managed domain is a collection of Emerald or InvisaPC Receivers and Transmitters managed by a Boxilla. Once a Receiver
or Transmitter has been added to a managed domain, it can only communicate with other Receivers or Transmitters within this
managed domain. They are not able to communicate to “unmanaged” devices or devices that are part of a different managed
domain (i.e., a domain managed by a different manager). Boxilla is used to configure users, connections, hotkeys and other
parameters. The database created on the Boxilla is synchronized to each Receiver on a Boxilla user login. If the Boxilla for the
managed domain is not reachable (e.g. powered-down), the Receiver will use the last updated database. This ensures that there is
no single point of failure in the managed domain. Users can login and connections can be made even if the manager of the domain
is not reachable.
When a Receiver is managed, most of the configuration options on the OSD are disabled (i.e., grayed out). These configuration
options can only be updated on the manager.
