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View CATxIP 1000

The AdderView CATxIP 1000 packs just enough punch at a sweet price for SMBs and remote offices

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Pros

  • Low-cost

Cons

  • USB ports are device-specific, maximum of four controlled power boxes

Bottom Line

The AdderView CATx1000 IP is a low-cost, no-frills IP KVM that simply does its job without any fuss.

Would you buy this?

  • Price

    $ 2,085.00 (AUD)

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The tricky parts

From a management perspective, as mentioned, Adder doesn't offer the single-click convenience that you'll find in pricier systems. Still, you don't lose access to management functionality entirely: Just open up a Telnet window to get at iLo, DRAC, or IPMI service processes. You'll want to take good notes, however, as to which address is which. To the big boys' credit, making these additional management pieces available via a simple right-click removes the "oops" factor of typing in the incorrect service processor address and rebooting the wrong machine.

AdderView offers a particularly clever trick: You can control a collection of dual-headed computers by tying two KVM units together via their serial-option ports, then sending a CAM from each KVM to each video port on the computer. The trick does requires that you have two KVMs for each of your dual-headed video connections. The benefit here is that you don’t have to pay for an extra console video port if you don’t want to, but you have the option to add it later without the need to trade in the old unit. I would like to see a model in Adder's lineup offers DVI instead of analog video, especially considering that DVI has replaced VGA for most multiheaded setups.

The AdderView CATx1000 IP is a low-cost, no-frills IP KVM that simply does its job without any fuss. Thanks to VNC, even a branch office can have remote access to their servers, right down to making BIOS changes and watching for errors as systems boots up. It can't compete with enterprise-oriented IP KVMs in terms of scalability or easy access to management tools — but it's targeted at SMBs, not large companies, and it's priced accordingly.

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