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SERVSWITCH™ ULTRA
3.3 Cascading in ServSwitch Ultra Systems
In a normal cascaded ServSwitch Ultra system, the shared monitor(s), keyboard(s),
and mouse (mice) are directly attached to one or more “master” ServSwitch Ultras,
while all the CPUs are indirectly attached through “submasters” (subsidiary
ServSwitch Ultras, regular ServSwitches, ServManagers, etc.) that provide port
expansion but may or may not perform any control functions of their own. When
you cascade in this way, you can expand your system to include up to 256 ports
(sixteen 16-port submasters on a 16-port master unit).
CAUTION!
To avoid platform- and peripheral-mismatch problems, take these
precautions:
1. In any application involving CPUs belonging to different platforms,
we recommend that you use multiplatform masters and submasters.
2. If you own any of the older Apple only or Sun only ServSwitches
we used to sell, don’t try to add them to your cascade. They do not
support cascading.
3. If you attach any PC-only submasters to a multiplatform master,
make sure you attach
only
IBM PC compatible CPUs to those
submasters.
4. If you use any PC-only masters, we recommend that you use only
PC-only submasters. If you must use any ServManager or ServSwitch
Ultra submasters, make sure that you have those submasters set for the
keyboard and mouse type you’re using with [Ctrl] M
xx
[Enter], and make
sure that those settings are saved in the submasters’ NVRAM with
[Ctrl] K.
5. All of the CPUs attached to any PC-only submaster must use the
same type of keyboard and mouse.
You can add submasters to your ServSwitch Ultra system as you need them. For
each submaster you add to the system, you add as many ports as are on that
submaster, minus the one port on each master “above” it that’s now occupied.
Refer to Figure 3-2 on page 30:
• Connecting one 4-port submaster Serv unit to a 4-port master ServSwitch Ultra
(top view) gives you a total of 7 ports: 4 on the submaster and another 3 (4
minus the one that the submaster is attached to) on the master.
• Connecting four 4-port submaster Serv units to a 4-port master ServSwitch
Ultra (bottom view) gives you a total of 16 ports, 4 on each submaster. (All 4
ports on the master are now occupied.)
When you use Matrix ServSwitches as submasters, the setup is a little more
complicated. Refer to Figure 3-3 on page 31: Connecting two 4-port Matrix
ServSwitch submasters to an 8-port ServSwitch Ultra master gives you a total of
14 ports on that master. (Each of the masters in Figure 3-3 can access 14 ports, but
while both masters share CPUs 1 through 8, CPUs 9 through 14 on either master