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CHAPTER 5: Operation
5.8 Cascading ServSwitch Wizard Units
Multiple ServSwitch Wizard units can be cascaded
(connected together in a one-to-many scheme) in order
to increase the maximum number of available CPU
ports in your KVM-switching system. This can be
particularly useful where clusters of computers are
located some distance from each other, because each
Switch unit acts as a kind of signal booster or repeater
and can be as much as 50 feet (15.2 m) away from the
other Switches in the system. (To send video these
distances, you will
absolutely have to
use the optional
power supply for your cascaded Switches.) To select
channels in cascaded systems, you will need to send
hotkey commands from the master Switch’s keyboard
(see the “{Hotkeys} + {Channel Address}” paragraph in
Section 5.5
).
For an example of hotkey switching, consider a
situation in which two ServSwitch Wizard units, unit “A”
and unit “B,” are connected together as shown in
Figure 5-2 on the next page. To select the computer
attached to port 3 on ServSwitch Wizard “B,” you would
press and hold down the hotkeys, then press and release
“2,” press and release “3,” and finally release the hotkeys.
This causes the master Switch, unit “A,” to switch to its
