[BBLISA] looking for production grade KVM switch recommendations

[miah]

Avoid Belkin if possible.  They produce the crappiest hardware ever.  
The USB ports on them don't even emulate USB keyboard/mouse so everytime 
you switch to/from a USB system its equiv to unplugging the 
keyboard/mouse.  Solaris doesn't like that =)

Anyways, at my current job we use HP kvm's.  I'm not sure on the model 
but I can check if needed.  The way it works is you plug in this little 
box to your server, it has video/mouse/keyboard and then that hooks to a 
switch via cat5.  So you get KVM over IP, and we have a 1u drawer with 
video / keyboard for local access when we're in the NOC.  The KVM client 
software works under Linux and Windows, and has user access control, so 
you can specify which users are able to access which systems.  Overall 
its a great system and saves me lots of trips down to the NOC when I 
need to work on things "locally" instead of over SSH.

-miah

On Thu, Jul 07, 2005 at 10:57:15AM -0400, stephen g. wadlow wrote:
> 
> 
> I find myself looking for some decent KVM switches.  Specifically, I need
> some units for local use (1 user, at a single physical console) and a
> couple for remote datacenter use (1 user at a single physical console, and
> 1-2 able to come in via IP.)  For the remote use, ability to screen switch
> via a hot key is pretty much a requirement.  Typically, I'm looking at 16
> port and 32-port options.
> 
> Belkin has always struck me as kind of clunky, and "just fine for
> home user", but not something that I'd want for more serious work.
> 
> 
> I've had good experiences with the NTI USB KVM, but the selection is
> limited, and I'm not sure if USB suits my needs.  I like the look of the
> Raritan Dominion DKX-216, but I haven't used them before, so I'm not sure
> how the firsthand user experience is, especially for the KVM over IP side
> of it.
> 
> Any experiences, comments or suggestions?
> 
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