When Virtual Ports is selected under Ports > Virtual Ports in Expert mode, the following form appears.The virtual ports form allows you to perform clustering of ACS units. The ACS clustering is designed to allow a large number of serial ports (up to 1024) to be configured and virtually accessed through one IP address.You can use one ACS as the “master” unit to control other ACS units as “slaves”. The ports on the slave unit(s) appears as if they are part of the master unit.Note: Multiple IPDUs should only be connected and daisy-chained through the serial port of the master ACS unit when you are configuring a cluster.When you click the “Add” or “Edit” button on the Ports > Virtual Ports form, the following dialog box appears.The following table describes the fields available in the Virtual Ports New/Modify Port dialog box.
Number of ports on each slave unit. Choices are 1, 4, 8, 16, 32 and 48. The first unallocated port number for the slave. For example, if the master unit has 16 ports, ports 1-16 are allocated. The “First Local Port Number” is then 17. The IP address for the master ACS or it can be the global IP address of the cluster in the network. The first TCP port number for the slave. For example, if the master unit has 16 ports, the allocated TCP port numbers to the master are 7001-7016. The “First Local TCP Port No.” is then 7017. This is a virtual TCP port number. First Remote TCP Port Number The first TCP port number of the slave. The default is 7001. The communication protocol used by the slave. The options are Telnet or SSH.Once you have configured the “Slave” ACS unit and defined the cluster parameters, the slave serial ports and the connected devices are accessible from the master ACS unit under Applications > Connect > Serial pull-down menu as shown in the following figure.Note: ACS boxes should be connected individually to an IP network. The units should not be cascaded.
1. Go to Ports > Virtual Ports in Expert mode, and click the “Add” button to add new slave ports, or click the “Edit” button to edit a slave port.
2. From the drop-down menu select the number of ports that you want to assign as slaves.
8. Select the communication protocol between the master and the slave from the “Protocol” pull-down menu.Pressing the “Port Names” button on the New/Modify Port dialog box, brings up the form shown in the following figure.Use this form to assign a name or alias to the slave ports in the cluster. Use a naming convention for effective management of the ACS units and the connected devices on your network.