Advice for serial to ip convertor

[emat]

Hi all,

I'm looking for a serial to IP convertor. I've seen a lot of those products, and every manufacturer says its product is the best. But I'm looking for someone with some experience in this and who can advice me a product.

Here's a situation.

We have a switch which you can connect to using a serial port. We want to be able to connect a serial to ip convertor on this switch and be able to telnet into this device in order to receive data (such as statistics) and send commands to the switch to navigate through the switch's simplistic menustructure. Serial convertors tend to have 2 operation modes. Server mode and virtual com mode. We're only interested in the server mode. This enables us to telnet (raw session) to that serial convertor.
We're looking for a device that enables us to telnet to 1 port and send and receive data to only that 1 port. We've seen versions that need 2 ports, one for sending and one for receiving (moxa devices) but we don't like that.

We just want to be able to telnet to a port and have the menu's and information available as we were connected through serial cable and hyperterminal or minicom.
It's the menu interactivity which I think is going to be a problem.

Someone with tips, advice, remarks or experience ;-)

Thanks in advance!

 

[outonalimb]

We use products from Perle -

http://www.perle.com.

Check out the terminal servers section.

However, if you just want access to your switch, it might be more cost effective to replace it. All modern managed switches can be managed using telnet via IP.

Regards,

 

[emat]

Actually it's not a switch I was talking about....
I just used it to have an easy example. We're trying to solve a situation where a analog modem is used to dial into a hvac management system

 

[emat]

Is it possible with this perle equipment to telnet to 1 port and navigate through menus delivered by the serial device?

 

[robertjo24]

Look at Precidia.

They have a small, single port terminal server that takes 5 minutes to configure (if you have to read the manual), and is very robust. Take a look at precidia.com and look for the iPocket232. You can get one online for about $145.00.

If you want a litle more functionality, Cyclades has a single port terminal server (TS-100) built on a Linux platform. You can get it for around $250.

The Precidia is easier to configure, but the Cyclades has infinite possabilities, because it is written on an open source platform and can be programmed to do just about anything.