This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.
Remote access appliances, also known as “Keyboard/Video/Mouse” (“KVM”) appliances, are often used to enable remote access from a user's personal electronic device, typically a laptop or a desktop computer, to a target device within a data center. Often the target device is a server, but this is only one example, and the target device could be any data center device that the user needs to communicate with.
Typically the KVM appliance is coupled to the target device, which as noted above is often a data center device, and more typically a server. The coupling is achieved by an interface device known in the industry as a “rack interface pod” (“RIP”) or a “digital rack interface pod” (“DRIP”). In either case, the interface device typically connects to an RJ45 port of the remote access appliance via a first cable, which may be a CAT5 or similar cable. A second cable, which is typically a video cable which is hard-wired to the interface device, extends out from the interface device and is coupled to a video port of the target device (e.g., a server). A third cable, typically a USB cable, may be hardwired or coupled via a releasable USB connector to the interface device. The third cable forms a serial communications link between the interface device and the target device. Thus, the second and third cables form the means by which serial communications and video information may be transferred between the interface device and the target device.
While the above described interface device has performed well in a data center environment, the requirement of three cables extending from the interface device (i.e., CAT5, USB and video) can make for a complex arrangement of cabling at the equipment rack where the interface device is being used. If an entire equipment rack is filled with servers each having an interface device coupled thereto, one can easily see that this creates a voluminous arrangement of cables that must be managed. If all of the equipment racks in a row are filled with servers or other devices to which such interface devices are coupled, the amount of cabling grows almost exponentially. Accordingly, a need still exists for an interface device that is able to interface data center devices with a KVM appliance with a significantly reduced amount of cabling.