Managing your Out-of-Band Network with Linux

Initially when I was asked to blog about out-of-band management I thought to myself, as most people would, “this is too basic!”  What new thing could I cover?  Generally speaking, out-of-band management, like management in general, is an afterthought.  With that typical attitude, we make the mistake of placing low value on access to our network devices, seeing it as a simple back door when in reality it could provide so much more.

The idea of creating the Cumulus® RMP (Rack Management Platform) came about after talking to several customers whose approach was to purchase low-end switching platforms to meet their out-of-band management needs.  These closed network platforms provide such limited feature sets that it’s easy to dismiss their usefulness.  The team sat down and came up with the idea to “complete the rack.” Why not provide the same open networking capabilities that Linux servers and Cumulus® Linux® switches offer for out-of-band management? Thus Cumulus RMP was created.

Typical Deployment Scenarios

In general there are two basic scenarios when it comes to out-of-band management.  The first provides a simple but versatile L2 flat design leveraging VLANs to manage the switches and servers in the rack.  The Cumulus RMPs Continue reading