Ask HN: Data Center Hardware - Start Up Idea

Posted by symkat on Wednesday September 01, 2010 @12:34PM
from the ask-hn dept.

I don’t roam around data centers much anymore, but one thing I recall from the emergancy visits is a “Crash Cart.” Basically a keyboard, mouse and monitor on a card that you push down the row, plugin and off you go.

Configuring a server now I’ve got a monitor and keyboard plugged into it, but I’ll have to move it soon and I started thinking about what a pain in the rear it is to move hardware around when you need to see what’s going on with a headless server.

The idea:

Imagine a laptop. Now instead of ports that you plug stuff into, imagine retractable cables in the back.

A VGA, DVI, PS2 (maybe?) and USB cables that you plug into a server and the laptop essentially becomes the monitor, keyboard and mouse. All running off a battery.

Of course there are other methods to manage this type of situation from a DRAC card to just a normal ethernet port and a VNC client, but from a pure hardware standpoint, I imagine this might be very useful to some data centers.

What do you think of the idea?

If you build it... give me one. :)

Re:Ask HN: Data Center Hardware - Start Up Idea by jpmc on Wednesday September 01, 2010 @01:18PM (#1653456)

All of the data centers I have worked in or have visited have had a KVM in each rack or cluster of racks. Many servers even come with a IP based KVM built into them ...HP does this for sure. It is a good idea but I think there are other products or methods that would reduce your target market.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Data Center Hardware - Start Up Idea by Altreus on Wednesday September 01, 2010 @12:44PM (#1653310)

Ah, the only viable use for an iPad.

Except of course you can't write software for the iPad without spending money so screw it.

Re:Ask HN: Data Center Hardware - Start Up Idea by mvip on Wednesday September 01, 2010 @12:42PM (#1653299)

I would imagine most serious data centers have either rack-mounted KVM's (the one that fits in a 1U) or some IP KVM.

Re:Ask HN: Data Center Hardware - Start Up Idea by zppx on Wednesday September 01, 2010 @12:48PM (#1653323)

The majority of data centers that I visited generally does had a 1U KVM in the rack.