Saku, NANOG-ers,
On 23 Dec 2025, at 20:04, Saku Ytti via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
On Tue, 23 Dec 2025 at 21:01, Phil Bedard <bedard.phil@gmail.com> wrote:
From a Cisco perspective when we built the first 8000 (Silicon One) routers, the original 8201/8202 had a separate Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) the same as a server because we thought people would truly enjoy having that. In turns out no one used it and more were confused by it. It added extra cost and took up real estate that could be used for other things, so it didn’t continue.
And I will apologise for all of us customers, we are wrong, you were right with CMP, you were right with BMC. It is blind spot we have and we need education.
I'm pretty sure you're half-joking and half-not, but that's the reality. I lead platform (hardware) development for Cisco Firewalls. I can tell you, that during my discussions with all of our Customers, from biggest to smallest ones, security folks don't appreciate fully dedicated, separate out-of-band management ports, with their own OS that's available no-matter-what. I've been through hundreds of discussions, and everybody says "nah" (and I don't even go into cost or whatever - just "availability"). I very much like your comment, and I'll use it, but that's reality folks - you vote with your wallets, and it seems that's not really as critical for management as you'd (and I'd) think. And even *I* have LTE access to my own rack(s), including console ports. And I'm just toying with all the fancy and less fancy gear... 2005? Hell - more like 1995... -- Łukasz Bromirski