Industrial cellular devices are often utilized to bring connectivity to devices placed in remote or difficult to reach locations. In addition to providing connectivity to rural or less developed regions with limited transportation infrastructure, industrial cellular devices may also be used to provide wireless connectivity to sensors or other electronics placed in inhospitable locations such as within storage tanks, on towers, stacks or structures of industrial plants, near dangerous operating equipment or otherwise within dangerous operating environments. Cellular connections provide data connectivity to these areas while avoiding the need to run data cables or, in some cases, the need to penetrate containment barriers such as a vessel wall.
A separate challenge is presented when these cellular device themselves have connectivity problems. When a wireless modem is activated and connects to a wireless network, if the connection over that network does go down, there is often no other way to gain access to that device other than sending a technician to troubleshoot the device locally, or simply wait to see if the connection comes back online by itself. Similarly, if a remote device is heavily utilized by application traffic or by a denial-of-service attack, the heavy traffic could complicate or interfere with efforts to remotely troubleshoot the device or change the configuration of the device to restore service. Supplemental network devices that implement out-of-band management channels present a limited solution for obtaining network access when connectivity via the cellular device is lost. However, they are not effective for situations where the cellular device itself has lost the ability to communicate with any external devices, either due to a device failure or due to misconfiguration.
For the reasons stated above and for other reasons stated below which will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the specification, there is a need in the art for improved systems and methods for secure out-of-band wireless device management.