Comparing the Best Out-of-Band Management Devices

We compare serial consoles for you. Download this comparison sheet to see tech specs for Avocent, Opengear, and other popular devices.

Out-of-band (OOB) management devices, also known as OOB serial consoles or console servers, provide access to and control over remote data center infrastructure. While they’re known for giving management access over serial connections, they can control any management interface, such as KVM (keyboard-video-mouse), IPMI, WebUI, API, Rack PDU, or environmental sensor ports. The best OOB management solutions combine high-speed out-of-band interfaces, robust internal hardware, advanced security features, and NetOps automation support to provide complete data center management platforms. To help you choose the right enterprise solution, this guide compares the best out-of-band management devices for data center deployments based on these capabilities.