Administration > Server Access: Inband and Out of Band > Determining the Connection Type and its Supported Functionality

Determining the Connection Type and its Supported Functionality
When a user wants to connect to a server displayed on the WMI Connect to Server form, the drop-down list indicates whether the server can be accessed by a KVM connection, an in-band connection, or both. In the connect list, all servers connected to KVM ports appear first followed by all servers that are accessed through in-band connections and are not connected to KVM ports; those servers that can be connected by both methods appear at the bottom of the list.
The types of connections that can be made to each server is displayed in parenthesis at the end of each server entry in the list. The following table describes the functionality of each connection type.
 
Users can control all applications on the server, have BIOS access, and can view POST, and boot messages. Users can access this server even when the network is down or after a system boot is completed.
Users can also control the power flow on this server if the server is plugged into an AlterPath PM and the port is properly configured for power management.
Indicates that the Microsoft Terminal Server running RDP can be accessed only through an in-band connection and is not connected to a KVM port.
Users can access this server only to run applications once the server is already running. The performance on in-band connections is slightly better than that of KVM connections, and no synchronization of keyboard and mouse is necessary.
The first time users select this server from the Connect drop-down list, an in-band connection is attempted. The connection automatically switches to KVM only if the in-band connection fails or if an in-band connection to this server already exists.
The first connection is an in-band connection viewed through an RDP ActiveX viewer. The second connection is a KVM connection viewed through the KVM ActiveX Viewer.

Administration > Server Access: Inband and Out of Band > Determining the Connection Type and its Supported Functionality