Reference Guide
8 Management Networks for Dell EMC Networking
2.1 Switch management ports
There are various port types available for connecting switches to a management network. The port that is
used depends on the category of management network being used and the port that is available on the
managed switch. Table 3 provides examples of ports to look for on the switch.
Note: For additional information regarding the network ports available with your hardware, see the
documentation that comes with your hardware.
Switch management port connectors
Console Management
OOB Ethernet Management
In-band Ethernet Management
*
*
These connectors for switches are
used primarily for production traffic.
They can also be used to carry
management traffic.
*Optical connectors are embedded in optic transceivers that are used with SFP and QSFP ports. Optionally, a DAC cable
can be used in place of these transceivers.
On a switch, the RJ45, DB9, and USB type A console port connectors (showing the “IOIOI” symbol) are RS-
232 serial signal connectors. USB type B console ports are USB data ports that connect directly to a
workstation USB port.
2.2 Console management
This connection method uses the console port on a device to configure it. Physical access to the device is
required when directly connected to a workstation (laptop or desktop) computer. In a data center environment
where there are many devices within one or more racks, console ports are typically connected to a console
server to aggregate the console connections in the rack.
A single console server usually provides enough ports to manage all of the devices in a rack. There are
several third-party manufacturers to choose from that offer console servers. These devices offer an Ethernet
NIC port to allow an uplink to an Ethernet network, such as in-band or OOB, as shown in Figure 2. Depending
on the console server model, multiple network administrators can use application layer protocols such as
SSH, Telnet, HTTP, and others, to log in to the console server and access the console ports of the devices
attached.