Re: Thin console capabilities (was Denying TCP connections basedon IP)

The HMC is /not/ only meant for Big Companies! Desktop and Deskside units list at $1800 (Less than two disk units). Great for connecting to your own KVM. You must be looking at the rack mount version with the rack mount keyboard and flat panel display which is north of $5000. I agree that the windoze solution isn't great but since the requirements for the thing are pretty minimal (for the console part alone) most of my customers who use that have allocated an old W2K cast off machine to that function which mitigates the cost significantly.

The TC is a good replacement for twinax but it is what it is and it's as cheap as it is because of that.

My System i customers include organizations as small as ones who train guide dogs for blind and deaf people. Many still run 170s and others are on 520s with only two disk units and base memory. Sure we have large customers but by raw count they are but a small part of my business. Unfortunately, I can count the number of Billion Dollar customers that I have on one hand without using most of my fingers!

- Larry

Lukas Beeler wrote:

The HMC is only meant for big companies, as it costs nearly as much as a
baseline 515 ;)

And Operations Console isn't that much of an option, it requires a
separate, full fledged PC that needs to be maintained etc.

The Thin Console is a good replacement for Twinax terminals, and it's
what we use exclusively for our new system deployments.

I work for Small Businesses, not the multi billion dollar companies
you're used to. This means that "just buy a HMC", "just buy an
additional PC" are usually not really options. I would like to ship
every new system we sell with a HMC, believe me. But the cost is
prohibitively high.

Lukas Beeler wrote:

(I still think that the TC is a rather poorly done product, since it
doesn't offer remote access).

If you want remote access the HMC is the way to go. Sure it's more money

but it's got all that support built in that you need for that including security. It has the ability to restrict users to functions based on job

role etc, to access ASMI, to share consoles for multiple partition and systems. Thin Console was brought to light for those customers who just

simply couldn't live without a dedicated terminal based console. Having to add a twinax card for this is expensive and wastes two slots (IOA plus IOP) and locating a supply of good twinax terminals is getting more

and more difficult these days! If you want remote console access you can also choose Operations console with either LAN or direct connect. Thus adding remote capability to Thin Console would serve only to increase cost and complexity, it wouldn't provide anything else that doesn't already exist.

- Larry