Dell OUF366 IP KVM Interface POD
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@thecreativeone91 said:
@StrongBad said:
Why is it called an IP interface then, if there is no IP?
I think the KVM switch itself might have a network portion/configuration to it.
Exactly!
You remote into the KVM switch, which uses the CAT5 cable to talk to the cards, which have cables that hang off the back of the servers. Once you're remoted in, you can bring up console screens for all of the attached servers.The only IP part is the KVM switch itself.
This is what you used before iDRAC.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
@StrongBad said:
Why is it called an IP interface then, if there is no IP?
I think the KVM switch itself might have a network portion/configuration to it.
Like to set it up but not to access the KVM itself? Isn't that like having a network server that has an out of band interface but no NIC?
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@Dashrender said:
@thecreativeone91 said:
@StrongBad said:
Why is it called an IP interface then, if there is no IP?
I think the KVM switch itself might have a network portion/configuration to it.
Exactly!
You remote into the KVM switch, which uses the CAT5 cable to talk to the cards, which have cables that hang off the back of the servers. Once you're remoted in, you can bring up console screens for all of the attached servers.The only IP part is the KVM switch itself.
This is what you used before iDRAC.
They aren't old enough to be around before DRAC was. Apparently these were included in a batch of 20 or 30 Dell PE 1950s/2950s that we used to have. Those had DRACs in them though.
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I'm sure they are still in use today. DRAC isn't cheap, these might be less expensive, and therefore still have a market.
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@Dashrender said:
I'm sure they are still in use today. DRAC isn't cheap, these might be less expensive, and therefore still have a market.
You'd be correct, I can name at least 3 companies (all of which I've worked for) that still use them.
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And these devices only cost 1 ethernet port, instead of one per server at the cost of 1 U in a rack. Not a huge savings, but still a savings.
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@Dashrender said:
I'm sure they are still in use today. DRAC isn't cheap, these might be less expensive, and therefore still have a market.
They also lack key features, I assume, like monitoring and power cycling.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I'm sure they are still in use today. DRAC isn't cheap, these might be less expensive, and therefore still have a market.
They also lack key features, I assume, like monitoring and power cycling.
Another point against is I've yet to use a PS/2 one that was reliable. This may be due to the age of the gear (ancient) but the USB ones always worked better for me.
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@Dashrender said:
And these devices only cost 1 ethernet port, instead of one per server at the cost of 1 U in a rack. Not a huge savings, but still a savings.
Yeah but you'd need more than one of these anyone for many servers. And cabling direct runs to these from all servers would be annoying when you have a lot of racks.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
@Dashrender said:
And these devices only cost 1 ethernet port, instead of one per server at the cost of 1 U in a rack. Not a huge savings, but still a savings.
Yeah but you'd need more than one of these anyone for many servers. And cabling direct runs to these from all servers would be annoying when you have a lot of racks.
I'm sure they have high density versions of these - in any case, they are definitely a throwback item from a while ago that is clearly still hanging on.
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@Dashrender said:
I'm sure they have high density versions of these
That would make it worse as far as cabling with server racks. That's why we have 48 port switches in each server rack.
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Traditional KVMs are cable nightmares. And really, what business puts good management as such a low priority? Even at home I've been on out of band management cards since around 2006 and I was probably late to the game! Once again, companies falling below the home line.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Traditional KVMs are cable nightmares. And really, what business puts good management as such a low priority? Even at home I've been on out of band management cards since around 2006 and I was probably late to the game! Once again, companies falling below the home line.
Even our old servers (not running) stored in a vault had remote access cards some are as old as 2001. We had to keep them for 15 year for compliance sadly (the ones that had financial data).
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@thecreativeone91 said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Traditional KVMs are cable nightmares. And really, what business puts good management as such a low priority? Even at home I've been on out of band management cards since around 2006 and I was probably late to the game! Once again, companies falling below the home line.
Even our old servers (not running) stored in a vault had remote access cards some are as old as 2001. We had to keep them for 15 year for compliance sadly (the ones that had financial data).
I had all gear made post 2000 with ILO or DRAC or equivalent, even when buying used gear (which was pretty popular to do in the pre-virtualization X86 era) we were making sure everything had out of band management going back to Proliant G1s. Just not worth having a server that lacked that.
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Out of band management is awesome. I would be pretty wary of deploying a server that lacked it. The ability to remotely access everything, including the power button, is huge. And that remote might be from the other side of the world or just down the hall. Being able to not walk into the server room for every little thing is a pretty big deal.
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And many out of band management solutions give you access to remote CD/DVD drives too. So you can install a hypervisor or operating system or do repairs using a utility without needed to make a physical copy, stand in the server room, work from an old monitor on a shelf....
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@scottalanmiller said:
Traditional KVMs are cable nightmares. And really, what business puts good management as such a low priority? Even at home I've been on out of band management cards since around 2006 and I was probably late to the game! Once again, companies falling below the home line.
You are not normal - not even close, I'd be willing to bet that less than 1% of IT personal have out of band connectivity on their home equipment.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Traditional KVMs are cable nightmares. And really, what business puts good management as such a low priority? Even at home I've been on out of band management cards since around 2006 and I was probably late to the game! Once again, companies falling below the home line.
You are not normal - not even close, I'd be willing to bet that less than 1% of IT personal have out of band connectivity on their home equipment.
Fewer than 1% are the ones you'd want to hire
No different than any field. Fewer than .01% bother interacting with their peers in social communities. We need to set the bar higher.Since my number one recommendation (and tons of people have echoed this, I am certainly not in a vacuum) for anyone in IT is to get commercial gear (used and cheap) at home to get experience and lab time it would be pretty sad if no one had this stuff at home. Even when I was an overnight hotel clerk trying to get into IT I had this stuff at home.
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I deal with enough servers at work these days, I don't care to have any at home.
