From Casper.Dik@Holland.Sun.Com Fri Dec 21 02:12:19 2001 From: Casper.Dik@Holland.Sun.Com (Casper H.S. Dik - Network Security Engineer) Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin,comp.sys.sun.hardware,comp.unix.solaris Subject: Re: KVM Switches for Sun Date: 20 Dec 2001 17:52:06 GMT Organization: Sun Microsystems, Netherlands Message-ID: <9vt8g6$c1p$1@new-usenet.uk.sun.com> References: <5LtT7.163794$er5.1430172@e3500-atl2.usenetserver.com> <21f54359.0112181157.5fda0b1b@posting.google.com> <9vs9rt$4qo$1@new-usenet.uk.sun.com> <21f54359.0112200911.72c33033@posting.google.com> Mail-Copies-To: never Lines: 104 [[ PLEASE DON'T SEND ME EMAIL COPIES OF POSTINGS ]] mike.a.thomas@motorola.com (M. Thomas) writes: >That's nice, you disagree. It would be nice to hear why you think >this is not a good way to manage Sun systems. Perhaps you could >elaborate on your experiences using KVM switches at 4 or 5 different >employer's and why they proved inadequate to the task. I enjoy Rich >Teer's comments, he leaves no doubts as to his feelings regarding >personal computers. I'm afraid that for Rich, I have become one of >the untouchables, I'm composing this response on a "Pee Cee", ugh, I >feel unclean. I'm going to go wash my hands right now. There are many reasons why not to use a KVM to manage Suns: - they're much more expensive - they require physical proximity to the systems administered - earplugs (!) - "worker hostile" (too hot, too cold, too noisy) - they only allow concurrent access by one administrator - we don't ship servers with framebuffers - we don't support framebuffers on some. - allows seperation of physical access from administrative access. - keyboards/mice need initializations; they may not work with KVMs. (systems need to see mouse/keyboard when booting) - framebuffers may need to see the monitor in order to determine what to output. Our server rooms have no monitors in them. >One of my co-workers has a MAC on his desktop, the only MAC in the >department. He said that he would resign his EE engineering position >before he would give up his MAC. Management decided to let him keep >it as long as he resolves all support issues himself. This is simply >stubborness. But, I do have to admit a certain grudging admiration >for really determined people who are going to do it their way. I glad >I work for a company that allowed him to keep his beloved Apple. It's KVM that are a thing of the past; they're needed to solve a deficiency in MS-Windows. If Microsoft takes the data center sufficiently serious, the need for a KVM will disappear because they'll fix their software. >You guys have got to be putting me on. Perhaps you're just trolling. >Never a reason to access the desktop locally! Hilarious! Every >company I've worked for has deployed KVM switches on at least some of >the servers. Do you two ever look at any of the sys admin or trade >magazines? All of these poor misguided companies trying to sell KVM >switches for Suns, they must all be on the verge of bankruptcy. Well, to each his own. If you manage a PC & Sun shop and have servers of both kinds, you may want to use KVMs because you need them for PC; I have never heard of predominantly SUn shops that employed anything other than console servers. There's a reason why our Enterprise servers can be powercycled through the serial console; if I borrow a large server for testing, I never need to leave my desk, am told a port on a terminal server and can experiment to my heart's content, they do not necessarily want to give me access to the server room; and I'm happy being able to play with the system from my desk at work or from home; there would be no difference. And snake oil is still on the market too (various kinds). >Probably all commercial organizations experience some network >problems, they don't have to completely fail to make terminal servers >undesirable or cause problems with accessing systems remotely. What >happens if nis or nis+ develops a problem? What do you do if your DNS >server is catching a cold? Most people in networking are familiar >with various broadcast storms and switches sometimes have to be reset. I just don't buy that point; a backup solution that solves that is easily addressed, and you can configure terminal servers to be resistant to most; terminal servers generally don't need name servers (they don't lookup names) but if you use authentciated access then the authentication server may fail. Still, the backup solution gives you a solution that is no worse than what the default is for a KVM: you need to get up and go to the server room. >Just last week we migrated 160GBytes of data to a NetApp. We made >changes to the nis servers and rebooted all of the servers at least >twice. Having a Rose switch, actually two of them, made this all much >easier. The network wasn't down, but as you know when you kill nis or >shutdown your NFS servers, the network might as well be down. Not enough to affect your terminal server. It need not depend on anything other than the IP layer. The main problem I have with a KVM switch is that it *requires* you to go to the computer room for certain tasks; the network terminal server allows you do much more from your office. Only physically building and connecting the server needs to be done in the serverroom. Casper -- Expressed in this posting are my opinions. They are in no way related to opinions held by my employer, Sun Microsystems. Statements on Sun products included here are not gospel and may be fiction rather than truth.