Summary: Suggestions for buying a console server/switch.

Thanks to everyone who replied . Here is the list of suggestions. I haven't got a chance to look at
the prices of all these, but if someone did a research and knows which would be cheapest let me know. Two of 
them replied cyclades is the cheapest.
 
Cyclades are the ones you want : near the cheapest of all solutions, but provides tons of functionality : SSH/TELNET,  LDAP/local-passwords, history of logs that arrived on each of the ports, SUN/HP/Windows, ...

http://www.cyclades.com/products/2/ts_series
http://www.cyclades.com/products/3/alterpath_acs
 
http://www.avocent.com/web/en.nsf/Content/DS-SerialControloverIP
http://www.thinklogical.com/products/console_servers/scs80.php
www.conserver.com
http://www.digi.com/products/consolemanagement/digicm.jsp
 Digit PortServer TS 
Latronix SCS820. 
http://www.lantronix.com/data-center-management/console-servers/scs820-scs1620.html
http://www.raritan.com/
Try the perle 9000: 
http://www.perle.com/products/prod_family/console_server/cs9000.html
 
 
Couple of mails:
 
We had many customers complaining, that's why we designed the Digi CM 
tosimply use straight through cat 5 (Ethernet) cables to connect to Sun
server or Cisco routers. If the devices don't have RJ45 connectors, we
offer cables adapters to go with regular cables. 
Besides the cables the Digi CM is simple to use without spending too
much time with the manual. 
Get more information about the Digi CM at:
http://www.digi.com/products/consolemanagement/digicm.jsp
 
For my money you can't beat www.cyclades.com
db9/db25 to rj45 connector cables are $5 each. That also means you
can get 330 ft range from console server to Sun server. Many other
vendors use 25 ft serial cables.
 
thinklogical.com
Uses standard RJ45 cables and - depending on your system - will go straight to RJ45 console or to 25 or 9 pin with adapters that you can get from them
 
Don't get the Nortel Networks Annex(Micro or other) which is repackaged
through Sun as NTS (network terminal switch) if you don't want custom
cabling. It works great but has a specific cable pin out on the annex
end. They don't bother to tell you about it in the docs. I included 
whatI found out by searching the internet and this cable works. I don't 
knowthe cost anyway.
 
Have a good day,
J.
 Yahoo! Sports -  Sign up for Fantasy Baseball.
_______________________________________________
sunmanagers mailing list
sunmanagers@sunmanagers.org
http://www.sunmanagers.org/mailman/listinfo/sunmanagers