When it comes to managing rack-mounted or blade servers, KVM (keyboard, video and mouse) switches are a popular alternative to software remote control, but they can be expensive and often require a lot of bulky cabling.

The new Altusen KH1508 from Aten, however, is priced to appeal to growing small businesses and uses ordinary Cat 5 wiring to link remote servers to the central switch.

As the name implies, the KH1508 is an 8-port KVM switch. A 16-port model (the KH1516) also available at a cost of £353 ex Vat. Both come in compact 1U housings complete with the necessary mounting brackets. Power is supplied by a built-in AC adapter and installation is straightforward.

Most of the ports are to be found on the rear panel with support for a single local console using standard PS/2 keyboard and mouse connectors plus the usual 15-way D-Sub VGA socket. The RJ45 ports to connect the servers are located alongside. Above them, a pair of dedicated daisy chain connectors allows additional KVM switches to be attached. Up to 31 switches can be daisy chained together, which means you can manage up to 256 remote servers from the one console, or 512 if using KH1516 switches.

Daisy chain cables, however, aren’t included with the switch. Neither do you get the UTP patch cables used to connect the remote servers, although these are cheap and readily available.

At the server end, a custom adapter (CPU module, pictured) is required to provide the necessary KVM connections. These come in variations including PS/2 and USB modules (£37.52 each ex Vat) for use with industry standard servers, plus adapters for Sun servers (legacy and USB ports) and to connect to serial-based devices.

Maximum cable length is 40 metres with a video resolution of up to 1,280x1,024 and a 60Hz refresh at this length, with 1,600x1,200 possible on cables of cables of 30 metres or less.

We found the switch very easy to set up and manage. The cables, adapters and additional switches can all be hot plugged without affecting other attached devices and the switch starts working as soon as it’s powered up with no initial configuration required.

LED-equipped buttons are provided for manual port selection with a separate display to show the station ID when several switches are daisy chained together. This ID is worked out automatically so you don’t have to set manual DIP switches as on some other low-end KVM products.

As well as selecting the stations manually, you can also use keyboard hot-keys and/or a menu-driven on-screen display (OSD).

The OSD menus are very straightforward, with the computer to be controlled simply chosen from a list. A degree of customisation is also possible. For example, we were able to give each port a user-friendly name and configure up to four users and an administrator, each with their own profile specifying which ports they were allowed to manage.

Performance is good, too. The switch takes just over a second to reset when a new port is selected. An audible beep sounds when this happens.

A port on the front of the switch is provided to enable the firmware to be updated, using a special cable supplied in the box.

Documentation is basic but adequate and we encountered no real problems either installing or using the Aten switch.