Data center out-of-band management network

[truetaurus]

Would "Cisco Prime Data Center Network Manager" be classed as an out-of-band management tool that I could use on a 2 tier data centre?

If not what solutions could I have for a data center that has a bunch of racks with servers and switches in that connect to an aggregation switch?

[Marvin Rhoads]

My take on "out-of-band" depends not so much on the tool but rather on how it accesses the managed devices.

Most Cisco data center devices have a management port that is independent of the data plane (separate communications processor, separate VRF).

If you communicate to that port using a system and via a network not co-mingled with your user traffic, then you have an out-of-band management tool.

[truetaurus]

But the what software would you use to connect into it?

[Marvin Rhoads]

You can do anything from ssh into individual management addresses, send syslog events from the systems to a simple syslog server via the management port, poll the management ports using an SNMP management system (from simple such as Nagios or Cacti up through complex like Cisco Prime LMS and DCNM) etc.