How Out of Band Management Works
August 17, 2010
Out of band management, or lights out management, is a computing term that involves using a dedicated managing channel for device maintenance. This method allows an administrator to maintain and monitor servers or any other networking devices via remote control, even when the machine is not turned on. Conversely, in-band management works by using regular data channels such as Ethernet to manage devices. One problem with in-band management is that it is vulnerable to problems, which can be caused by the very devices that are being managed.
To manage routers and network servers remotely, IT administrators will need to have access to the network if problems occur, which is impossible if the network access is not working. In some cases, the same problems that caused the network to go down are a direct result of losing management access to these devices. Out of band management helps to address this limitation through employing a managing channel, which is isolated from the main data channel.
For the networking device, the out of band management data, or urgent data, looks like a separate data stream, with no relation to the main data stream. This is very useful when trying to differentiate two different types of data. However, unlike the mainstream data, urgent data can become lost if the application does not keep up with it. The urgent data will notify the incoming connection that their separate stream is more important the other streams, so the server must first check the urgent data before it can process anything else.
Leave a Reply