DescentBB

What do you guys use for KVM on 8 or more machines, using cat5 to run from switch to machine. any recommendations?

Are you sure you are talking about a KVM?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KVM_switch

Yea, a keyboard video mouse switch, I've got several servers I want to tie into one monitor/k/m setup so I can free up some rack space and not have monitors all over the place. Not a terrible lot of distance, but I could probably chew up 75 or more feet in the routing of the cable to get from where each server is to where I want the switch at. Most of them have ps/2 ports, but there are one or two that only have usb. I'm looking for an 8port to start thats stackable later on, and I'm not sure which adapters work with which switches or if they're fairly standardized.

Have you explored any software solutions first (remote desktop/vnc/etc), they can save a lot of trouble assuming you don't need to access the machines BIOS/boot sequence anyway...

Yea, some of them remote destop/vnc/etc interrupts the software and/or crashes the software, others are linux machines, its a mix. I need something more reliable and accessible.

At large scale (i.e. dozens of machines, particularly in off-site locations), KVM over IP seems to be the way to go, but it also looks to be pretty expensive. In the middle isn't something I've had much experience with - I've seen four-machine setups (at work I have three used on a four-PC switch) but nothing over that so far.

Sounds like the biggest hurdle to overcome is that the hardware (and software) you are using isn't consistent or standardized, you may have to settle for only consolidating machines with similar hardware (PS/2 + VGA systems get grouped into one KVM, while USB + DVI systems get grouped into another...).

I was looking at something like this, but wasnt entirely sure if they would work together, or if it was pretty standardized.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817394003

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6812802078
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6812802080

Wow. They're not losing any money on those things!