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North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: KVM over IP suggestions?
DELL's DRAC-III is waste of money. DELL's DRAC-IV is a very good thing, and I find it replacing al consoles around (it have embedded monitoring with e-mail and SNMP alerts; have VNC based console servcie with perfect /not ideal, through/ mouse syncronisation, haVE VIRTUAL cd (SLOW, BUT WORKING) AND VIRTUAL FLOPPY, EASY-TO-USE INTERFACE (except strange password management), and so on. Compaq's RIB cards was good but expensive and nbot very reliable. Serial console can be fine, but do not eliminate normal console in many cases. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kevin" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, August 22, 2005 1:26 PM Subject: Re: KVM over IP suggestions? On 8/22/05, Matthew Black <[email protected]> wrote: > On Mon, 22 Aug 2005 11:15:23 -0400 > "Drew Weaver" <[email protected]> wrote: > > Howdy, I'm looking for a way to give our remote users access > > to their servers, perhaps a KVM-IP solution. What we need is support for > > multiple users (more than 2), with access control that limits what users > > can connect to what ports on the KVM switch, and would allow you BIOS > > level access and os-installation type control over the server, would > > also be nice if it worked with windows and linux/unix based systems. Where possible, I strongly prefer to work with serial console on a hardware platform with firmware serial console support. This works for any OS that supports a command line, including Windows Server 2003. Dell includes serial console support in the BIOS on "servers", and offers an enhanced remote management card which appears to work as a KVM-IP solution for Windows and (some versions of) Linux. I've never tried their DRAC/ERAC, only the serial console BIOS. All of the commercial remote serial console products we've considered so far have had serious security and/or usability flaws. This includes Cisco, Lantronix, Raritan, Digi, etc. > We have a non-IP switch from Raritan and saw presentations on their > IP KVM products. Seemed pretty impressive. One problem you may want > to focus on is screen resolution since the video output must be > converted to IP packets with a lower refresh rate. We're planning > to buy a few of these switches for remote monitoring. The "IP Reach" video compression is bearable for installation and recovery. Video quality is degraded, but unless you really cannot stand moire patterns, it'll take an hour or so staring at the display before your headache becomes unbearable. I have experience with Raritan's "Paragon IP Reach" products, and they do work, but are expensive for such a low port density. Also it has been very difficult to work with tech support to make the Paragon product with a RADIUS server for OTP access control. The newer "Dominion" line may be better; I've heard some complaints about their serial console products, nothing either way about KVM. Kevin Kadow
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