Question on console consolidation

[Anu Mathew]

Hi,

We have a group of 17 HP9000 servers, including mainly K series and 5 N servers. I have been using the HP secure web consoles. But the problem is that for each web console,individual IP address as well as a considerable amount of networking is required.

I would like to have a single device, with a single IP to be used for accessing all the consoles.

Is there a web console from HP available for multiple machines, that will be as simple as the HP's Secured Web console, has multiple serials ports to which the console ports of the servers can be connected, and requires only one IP address? I have heard of Cerebus X 16, a product that gives 16 ports, has a stand by lan port and offers SSL Web interface.

I have read about CWC from HP, but dont like the idea of running a separate machine for that purpose and besides, ours is a small setup.

Thanks a lot in advance for replying,

Regards

Anu Mathew

[Ravi_8]

till now there is no single web console for multiple machines. you no need to assign your network ip's to webconsole. since it will be having it's own(192.0.0192).only you need to change the ip's to different(192.0.0.193,192.0.0.194, etc..). if u don't like this too u can opt for HP's console where 2 consoles support 8 machines. u can change the console to any machine you feel like.

[Vincenzo Restuccia]

See for all info of WC:
http://docs.hp.com/hpux/onlinedocs/hw/swc/

[Graham Forecast]

There are a couple of companies who providing specialised products for connecting multiple unix system consoles to a central server via the serial connection. You may want to review their offerings:
Heroix Corporation (www.heroix.co.uk)
Entrix Computing Ltd (www.entrix.co.uk)

[Bill McNAMARA_1]

Use Service Control Manager based on the lan of your server you can centrally manage via client server, browser based.
Free d/l from software.hp.com but,
it's not console.... ie you can't get BCH, that is it's OS based sw...

Later,
Bill

[boley janowski]

This is a link to a simular question I answered about a month ago, in this one we specified a way to do what your asking and includes the link to look up the spec's on the device, digi's portserver II. Good Luck!

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,1150,0x19aeee3e323bd5118fef0090279cd0f9,00.html

[Bill McNAMARA_1]

You can always get a superdome and replace 8 of your K580s with it.
You'll get 8 consoles via one GSP!
I believe there are interesting trade ins!

Later,
Bill

[Timothy Butler]

There's great software available for managing and monitoring consoles, and they have links to all kinds of devices to access serial consoles.

IMO, a great setup is digiboard multiport cards in a Linux host, using conserver and tip to access the consoles. You can get 64 or more consoles on a single digi pci card. The "scroll of console knowledge" is at:
http://www.conserver.com/consoles/

tim

[Christopher Caldwell]

You can take a serial RS232 port concentrator/access server (e.g. a Cisco 2511) and wire each console to a port. Then you telnet to the 2511, and you can get a virtual terminal to each console.

[David Rodman]

Has anyone tried doing this from an HP host -
e.g. using a 8 or 64 port mux card and wireing
consoles to that?
It is something that I wanted to try but have not figured out what configs would be needed.

[boley janowski]

Anu,

Are you looking for something specific? If so, please offer a little more detail. Just trying to help.