Digi Intl. ANYWHERE USB/5 REM I/O-CONC ( 301-1130-01 )

by Digi

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 7.8 x 3.8 inches ; 1.9 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00006HWX6
• Item model number: 301-1130-01
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #55,315 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: February 2, 2002

Product Description

Digi AnywhereUSB 5 USB over IP Hub 301-1130-01 Terminal & Device Servers

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Product Solved A Major Issue...., February 1, 2008

By 

John P. Lockie (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Digi Intl. ANYWHERE USB/5 REM I/O-CONC ( 301-1130-01 ) (Personal Computers)

This is a bit lengthy, but a real world application of this tool, allowing me to give it 5 stars without batting an eye.

In this modern IT age it's surprising that software vendors of major applications still force us to use the USB "dongle" in our network for license management. We have multiple applications in our environment that rely on a dongle being connected to the distributing license server for users to be able to access a particular application.

Recently we migrated our server infrastructure from physical servers to virtual - and our virtualization product of choice was VMWare's ESX server. During testing it became apparant that access to USB devices on the servers motherboard would not be capable even in VMWare's latest 3.5 release (with no expectation for any future support). The first alternative was to run non-virtualized machines for these annoying dongles. Now we would be extremely limited in our disaster recovery and backup of these devices. They are off our SAN and in the case of disaster we would be screwed (our RTO basically out the window). There was also the issue of a single point of failure for these license keys (another fantastic reason why developers still relying on the dongle for commercial or enterprise software licensing are idiots, wake up people).

Now, imagine a product that I could rack up in an off site data center (connected via MPLS or some other IPSec VPN), and mount on a virtualized machine as if it were local to that machine. Now, my license dongles are not even in our building, they are in our off-site disaster recovery location (secure in a Tier IV data center). Users can access them through our local virtualized server, which is of course backed up continually. Should our primary data center go down I don't have to worry about the keys. They are IP based so our network never changed. The new VM that boots will connect to the same USB switch and provide the keys to our users. Our RTO would not be affected at all...

I could not have deployed this type of solution if it were not for this product. The amount of money invested in virtualization, disaster recovery, and rack leasing off site would have been largely wasted due to the lack of ability to provide licensing of certain business critical applications...! For the cost depending on your scenerio this is a "no duh" product.

Therefore, 5 stars.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Works well, January 13, 2008

By 

Michael Rhoadarmer - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Digi Intl. ANYWHERE USB/5 REM I/O-CONC ( 301-1130-01 ) (Personal Computers)

The Anywhere USB works as advertised. I'm running two USB printers from a Win2003R2 server in another location. Worked well for me because one of the printers only works as a local printer. Couldn't even get it to work with an HP printer USB printer server. The only set up problems I had were fixed by unplugging the power from the Anywhere USB and plugging it back in.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Get rid of ugly cable syndrome - 12 step program, October 26, 2007

By 

JRH "j5094" (Maryland United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Digi Intl. ANYWHERE USB/5 REM I/O-CONC ( 301-1130-01 ) (Personal Computers)

Well, perhaps only a few steps. But, first you have to buy an expensive item (minus one star). Once over the sticker shock, and after a couple of installation steps, the device works as advertised. Outstanding! I use it in the laboratory to control equipment at a distance. That way, I can remotely control equipment in a refrigerator without freezing my bippy.