What Is KVM And Why Do You Need It?

Posted in Web Master by DB

What is KVM? Do I need to it? Simply put, KVM stands for Keyboard, Video and Mouse. A KVM (switch) is primarily used to control multiple computers from the same keyboard, video monitor and mouse. At some point in your hosting career you will increasingly become concerned with remote administration access. As you graduate from shared hosting to a reseller account to leasing a dedicated server to finally co locating your own server with a datacenter of choice, one of the deciding factors in either leasing a server or co locating will be the availability of a KVM switch for remote administration.

Foremost among the necessaties of a webmaster is to have complete access to his/her remote server at all times. Using a remote KVM device (KVM over IP) you can do just that. You get complete access to your remote dedicated server over a secure internet connection.

The advantage KVM has over conventional methods of remote administration is that KVM does not depend on any software running on the remote server. KVM allows you to monitor your server right from the its booting up and even interact with the base level BIOS setting. Most KVM over IP devices support the web browser as the user interface so no client software is required.

Many hosting providers provide you with access to a Remote Console. But while having access to your remote server via a Remote Console is great keep in mind that a Remote Console uses an out-of-band management switch to redirect the computers serial console input and output over a secure internet connection to the remote user and this service requires that the server OS is up and running. This is where KVM scores over Remote Console as KVM does not depend on the OS and even offers BIOS level control.

Remember if you manage a dedicated server for your business or for your clients it is very important to plan for any kind of eventuality. Being completely dependent on your hosting providers support staff is obviously not the smartest situation to be in. This is where being with a dedicated server provider that gives you access to your server via KVM over IP is really important. Using KVM, you can pretty much access your remote server in almost any kind of state except of course when it is completely powered down.

Trust me, when your remote server does a blue screen on you, it will be your KVM switch that will save the day and keep those incredibly long minutes of downtime down.

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