jgreco
Resident Grinch
- Joined
- May 29, 2011
- Messages
- 18,680
On the topic of IPMI, ILO, or other funtastic remote access technologies ... which someone had just been asking about. I believe the question was something like "why do something so complicated" (as using IPMI when managing a server locally). Which I think is a great question, as I've been on both sides of it.
I've been running remote access technologies like serial console (~30 years) and KVM-over-IP (~15 years) for remote access and control of computing equipment. Serial console was very limiting, but made for lots of excitement when you'd need to dial in to a remote POP and use C-Kermit to upload a patched binary for a problem. Then along came KVM-over-IP, a magical technology only possible on high-ish speed Internet. Years ago, most KVM-over-IP solutions just weren't very well-rounded or practical, in part because it was only KVMoIP. You had to find other ways to deal with resetting hung gear, like rack PDU's. You had to find other ways to deal with remotely reloading or upgrading an OS on a server.
And a lot of people who think of KVM-over-IP, still think of it in that way. But today, it's better. It's MUCH better than that. With the advent of IPMI, you have a miniature system-on-a-chip at your disposal to manage the computer. It can provide you with keyboard and video over the network, yes... but it also gives you access to the status of the system, and control over the system, and the ability to plug USB peripherals into the system remotely. It is a dream!
Today, it is very common for me to sit on my fat arse in my office and to not lay hands on equipment except to plug it in.
We actually have a great shop bench with six bays and three stations of keyboard/mouse/monitor. But overall it is happening more and more often that it is easiest to be lazy and not bother hooking up VGA and PS/2... the shop KVM switch is a 4x16 dealie and there's only one uplink to the KVM-over-IP infrastructure. So it used to be that you'd be in the shop working at a bay. It used to be there'd be a pile of floppies, some USB floppy drives, a few floppy drives on the end of a FDD cable, piles of CD's, some USB CDROM's, etc. etc laying around. But of course you could never find the resource you needed, because it'd be in use or misplaced or whatever... and you'd be standing there scratching your head, trying to decide whether to go burn a new ISO of the missing item. What a pain!
But with the advent of virtualization, we had to build a consolidated repository on-line of ISO images. And once you have that, it turns out that with IPMI or ILO, it becomes easier to plug in an ethernet, go back to my desk, and then I can remotely command an ISO file to be mounted, and to manage the KVM over the management ethernet.
What's the alternative? Lots of time used to be spent downloading the latest software ISO's, burning CD's, hooking up CDROM's, cursing and swearing that boot ordering or other BIOS problems weren't letting it boot, hitting RESET, etc. To be sure, there's still some of that today, but basically I can sit here in the office and tell a box to do a lot of those things from remote.
And here's the kicker....
I can be doing other stuff - like browsing the FreeNAS forums - at the same time.
So I'm firmly in the "headless rocks" camp. I'll hook up a crash cart or KVM when necessary, but especially with virtualization, the similarity in workflows between managing a physical server and managing a VM from my desk is pretty compelling.
I've been running remote access technologies like serial console (~30 years) and KVM-over-IP (~15 years) for remote access and control of computing equipment. Serial console was very limiting, but made for lots of excitement when you'd need to dial in to a remote POP and use C-Kermit to upload a patched binary for a problem. Then along came KVM-over-IP, a magical technology only possible on high-ish speed Internet. Years ago, most KVM-over-IP solutions just weren't very well-rounded or practical, in part because it was only KVMoIP. You had to find other ways to deal with resetting hung gear, like rack PDU's. You had to find other ways to deal with remotely reloading or upgrading an OS on a server.
And a lot of people who think of KVM-over-IP, still think of it in that way. But today, it's better. It's MUCH better than that. With the advent of IPMI, you have a miniature system-on-a-chip at your disposal to manage the computer. It can provide you with keyboard and video over the network, yes... but it also gives you access to the status of the system, and control over the system, and the ability to plug USB peripherals into the system remotely. It is a dream!
Today, it is very common for me to sit on my fat arse in my office and to not lay hands on equipment except to plug it in.
We actually have a great shop bench with six bays and three stations of keyboard/mouse/monitor. But overall it is happening more and more often that it is easiest to be lazy and not bother hooking up VGA and PS/2... the shop KVM switch is a 4x16 dealie and there's only one uplink to the KVM-over-IP infrastructure. So it used to be that you'd be in the shop working at a bay. It used to be there'd be a pile of floppies, some USB floppy drives, a few floppy drives on the end of a FDD cable, piles of CD's, some USB CDROM's, etc. etc laying around. But of course you could never find the resource you needed, because it'd be in use or misplaced or whatever... and you'd be standing there scratching your head, trying to decide whether to go burn a new ISO of the missing item. What a pain!
But with the advent of virtualization, we had to build a consolidated repository on-line of ISO images. And once you have that, it turns out that with IPMI or ILO, it becomes easier to plug in an ethernet, go back to my desk, and then I can remotely command an ISO file to be mounted, and to manage the KVM over the management ethernet.
What's the alternative? Lots of time used to be spent downloading the latest software ISO's, burning CD's, hooking up CDROM's, cursing and swearing that boot ordering or other BIOS problems weren't letting it boot, hitting RESET, etc. To be sure, there's still some of that today, but basically I can sit here in the office and tell a box to do a lot of those things from remote.
And here's the kicker....
I can be doing other stuff - like browsing the FreeNAS forums - at the same time.
So I'm firmly in the "headless rocks" camp. I'll hook up a crash cart or KVM when necessary, but especially with virtualization, the similarity in workflows between managing a physical server and managing a VM from my desk is pretty compelling.
