Console Servers

Network uptime is critical for most global corporations today for sales, operations, production, and communication activities.  Outages can be extremely costly.  While software management tools can be used for performance monitoring and some remote troubleshooting, they only work when the network is up. For a more reliable solution, large corporations turn to out-of-band management with console servers. Network engineers can use OOB with console servers to reconfigure, reboot and reimage remotely across the internet or WANs even if the primary data network is down.

Console servers are a good solution for large distributed enterprises with multiple branches— such as banks, insurance companies, hospitals, utilities, retail and school systems— that may not have IT staff on-site. Network administrators can choose from a wide range of port densities to suit the application. For example, one console server may have as many as 48 serial ports for remote management of assets in data centers. Other console servers may have just four ports and are suited for connecting LAN switches and routers in data closets.