Timothy
Parker Consulting Incorporated
|
|
|
|
Western Telematic Console Management
Switch Western Telematic’s Console Management
Switch (CMS) series is available in both eight and 16 port units.
Most people think of a CMS as a device that allows you to plug multiple
computers into a switch that then leads to a single monitor, keyboard, and
mouse. The Western Telematic CMS is
not designed for this purpose. Instead, it has a set of RS232 ports on the back
that can be attached to devices such as modems, printers, or other serial
communications units, or to serial ports on servers such as UNIX and Linux
machines, acting as a telnet session. While the terminology is different than
most users would expect, the action is the same, allowing the user to switch
between any of the connected serial ports. The Western Telematic CMS is a
rack-mount black unit. We received the eight-port unit for review.
The back of the unit has eight male RS232 ports, two of which are DTE
system setup ports. A bank of DIP switchs, a 10Mbps Ethernet RJ45, and a power
switch complete the back panel. The
front of the light-weight unit has eight LEDs for device activity (one for each
port), as well as general status lights for power to the unit. You’ll have to
supply most of the cables for the CMS: included is a power cord, a short
Ethernet cable, and a short null modem cable. Setting up the CMS is easy: connect the
serial cables to the ports and devices and run a character-driven menu interface
to configure each port. Each port
can be accessed through two different levels of security, depending on the
password supplied. The User Port setting allows for simple access, while the
Supervisor Port setting gives you configuration abilities. Despite the inclusion
of an Ethernet port, we had to configure the CMS from a serial port using
telnet. After configuration is compete, the information is stored in
non-volatile memory (useful in case of a power failure) and can be stored as a
file on a computer for later recall. One of the useful aspects of the CMS is
that the serial ports can be individually configured for any baud rate,
duplexing, parity and so on. When
you switch between the ports, the settings are switched automatically for you. We didn’t like a few aspects of the
CMS. First, the network interface
should allow us to configure and manage the unit from anywhere on the network.
You can’t. Second,
switching between the ports is more annoying than most CMSs which have a
front-panel selection for the active port.
Third, the number of times you need to connect a serial device to a
switch like the CMS is limited. Since
all the ports are not configured for DTE, for clusters and rackmount servers a
standard console switch would be a much better choice than this serial approach. Working with the menu-driven interface
is not too bad, although many system administrators will have flashbacks to the
menu interfaces used by devices ten years ago.
Throughout our use of the CMS with two Linux servers and several serial
devices connected, we were struck by the fact that the CMS doesn’t really add
anything new and exciting to the administrator’s toolkit.
Everything we can do with the Western Telematic CMS we did with multiport
serial cards ten (and even twenty) years ago.
At just under $1000, the CMS is no less expensive than most serial port
solutions. Sure, the ability to rackmount serial connections may be useful for
some installations, but the applicability will be limited to specific
installations. For many
administrators, the CMS doesn’t add enough features to make it a logical
addition to a network or server cluster. Obviously, then, the CMS is for targeted markets only, and in
that role, it does well. Console Management Switch
CMS-8 Summary: A serial port switch system that doesn’t offer much over existing multiport systems, except in very specific installations. |
|
Send mail to
tparker@tpci.com with
questions or comments about this web site.
|