Speaking of that sort of thing, I'd really LOVE if there were a device about the size of a netbook that could be hooked up to otherwise headless machines in colos that would give you keyboard, video & mouse. i.e. a folding netbook shaped VGA monitor with USB keyboard and touchpad. I know there are folding rackmount versions of this (i.e. from Dell), but I want something far more portable. Twice in the past month, I'd had to drive 100+ miles to a remote colo and took a full size flat panel monitor and keyboard with me. Has anyone actually built this yet?
Not that I know of. We used to be able to buy Proview PL456S / Mag Innovision LT456S's 14" LCD's, which are fairly portable and small, and combined with a small form factor keyboard, that's not a horrible compromise. You just jam one in a little spare space in the top of a rack. But you can't *get* them anymore. Monitor sizes have exploded in the last half a decade. Bah. But from our own experience, the need for a keyboard and display has decreased dramatically in recent years. Most server grade gear these days can be had with IPMI/iLO/whatever, and the use of ESXi makes it uncommon for us to actually need physical KVM, which means that a small laptop is an ever-more-flexible tool. I'm a little curious to know if this sort of arrangement is still relatively uncommon. I must admit that our planning and preparedness is designed around a multi-level strategy to avoid having to go on-site to a site nearly a thousand miles away, so we've probably instrumented things a bit more heavily than many networks, but when the cost difference between IPMI- capable gear and standard gear is a handful of dollars, I guess I am a bit mystified that anyone would want to "drive 100+ miles to a remote colo" twice a month for a task that it sounds like KVMoIP or IPMI might be able to tackle. ... JG -- Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net "We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN) With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.