out of band management gear

Fri Feb 21 14:49:40 UTC 2014

Opengear's stuff works great; I believe they have models that support
modem on serial port to complement the built-in cell connection.  I
really like the cell stuff; you can have the device keep the data side
of the cell interface down for security and send it a text message to
bring it hot so you can ssh in.  It supports key-based auth,
firewalling, you can chain a serial hub to it if you need a whole bunch
of ports, you can map ssh ports to serial ports so you can just ssh
directly to the device you need to talk to, etc.  On the newer devices,
and this is not 'officially supported' but you can do it yourself or
even pay them to do it, you can set the different Ethernet ports on the
device to different subnets, or even do vlan tagging since it's all just
linux when it comes down to it.  We use their ACM5500 series to get
cell-based out of band for our serial devices and also stick it on four
different vlans so that it can get to things that require network-based
management even if there's a routing issue.

If you're in a noisy data center, or one that has thick walls, I've
found a high gain antenna makes a world of difference, but takes some
playing around with the web interface to watch your signal levels while
you turn the antenna to find the strongest tower to point it in the
direction of.

David

-----Original Message-----
From: Hank Disuko [mailto:gourmetcisco at hotmail.com] 
Sent: Friday, February 21, 2014 9:39 AM
To: NANOG
Subject: out of band management gear

Hi folks,
I wonder if anyone has good experiences to share with out-of-band
hardware?
I'm looking for a good OOB hardware vendor.  I need to manage my
routers/switches/firewalls in a datacenter located overseas, and I'm
looking to setup a good serial console server via an OOB link.
I've been looking at Lantronix, OpenGear, Raritan...but they all seem to
have the same basic features.  I'm having trouble really differentiating
them.
I'm interested in analog modem, cellular options for my OOB link.  Or
even a secondary internet circuit either wired or wifi if the DC has
that option available.
Any good suggestions or experiences with a current OOB solution out
there?  What are you doing for your OOB management?
thanks,Hank 		 	   		  