RS232 Serial Switch for Enterprise Deployments

Why you need an RS232 serial switch

An RS232 serial switch — also known as an RS232 serial console or RS232 console server — is used to manage other devices on a network. It connects to routers, switches, servers, and other devices in the rack via the RS232 serial port, so administrators can access and manage these devices without relying on the LAN. In addition, the RS232 serial switch creates an out-of-band management network that’s dedicated to infrastructure management and troubleshooting. OOB management ensures administrators always have access to remote data center infrastructure even during an outage while preventing resource-intensive network orchestration workflows from negatively impacting performance on the production network.

Secure OOB management and NetOps automation for enterprise data center deployments

The Nodegrid Serial Console Plus (NSCP) is a vendor-neutral RS232 serial switch for enterprise data center deployments. The NSCP packs 96 managed serial ports on a single, 1U rack-mounted box, helping you consolidate your management hardware and scale your data center infrastructure.

Nodegrid’s blazing-fast out-of-band solution is delivered via built-in 5G/4G LTE and Wi-Fi options to ensure constant and reliable management access. The NSCP uses enterprise-grade security features to protect your management network, such as:

The NSCP RS232 serial console includes an onboard server running the vendor-neutral, x86 Linux-based Nodegrid OS, which can host your choice of third-party networking & security applications from vendors like Palo Alto as well as custom Docker containers. The NSCP’s open hardware and software can also host or integrate with any automation tool or paradigm, including Ansible and Python. The Nodegrid platform provides a single, tightly integrated platform from which to orchestrate NetOps automation workloads across your data center deployment.