On Wed, 9 Jan 2013, Mikael Abrahamsson wrote:
I would like to post it here to solicit feedback on it. Feel free to use it to tell your vendor account teams you want this if you feel it useful. I've already sent it to one vendor.
Ethernet/Serial/USB management is useful, but I would not be in favor of eliminating the serial port entirely, because having an OOB serial console connection has saved me more than a few times. Plus, having working connectivity from something like a terminal server or a headless Linux box has proven its value countless times in the past. I would also add the following to your list: If $vendor's device provides an IP-based management interface over an ethernet port, it should provide both a web-based interface and a CLI. The web interface should be as platform-agnostic as possible (not restrict people to specific platforms and browsers), and be as gentle as possible in requiring things like Java. Being forced to deal with Java runtime version dependency hell in a critical situation would not fill my heart with joy. jms