Common Reliable Out Of Band Management Options at Carrier Hotels

David Hubbard dhubbard at dino.hostasaurus.com
Wed Jan 18 13:55:28 UTC 2017


Provided you can get a cell signal, we’ve been very happy with Opengear boxes.  We’d been using their ACM5508 which is eight serial ports, two Ethernet, cell.  It runs linux, you can ssh into it, do fancy things like keep the cell side down and use text messages to bring it up if you need to get in, does VPN, PPTP, monitors environmental things if needed, etc.  They replaced that model with the 7004 and 7008 (4 or 8 serial).  They have console servers if you need more ports; we have a 32-port daisy chained to a 5508 in a location we had serial growth, but their 7200-series is cell plus high density serial in one.

In a data center with particularly bad cell reception, Opengear recommended getting a high gain antenna from wpsantennas.com.  I contacted them and the recommendation for my specific use case was a Panorama WMMG-7-27.  We had it mounted above the overhead infrastructure on top of our cage and it dramatically improved the signal to make it a non-issue.

David

On 1/17/17, 4:59 PM, "NANOG on behalf of Darin Herteen" <nanog-bounces at nanog.org on behalf of synack at live.com> wrote:

    Greetings list,
    
    
    We are exploring standardizing our Out Of Band options across our network and various off-net locations and the question was brought up "What about carrier hotels? What constraints might present themselves at those locations?"
    
    
    Assuming each hotel we are located in can provide either Ethernet or DSL I'm guessing that is going to come a cost (cross-connects, rack space etc..) that might end up being cost prohibitive.
    
    
    So my inquiry is... What does the list find to be a reasonably priced yet reliable solution in carrier hotels for OOB? Or is that contradictory :)
    
    
    Thoughts on Cellular?
    
    
    Any experience/insight would be appreciated.
    
    
    Thanks,
    
    
    Darin
    



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