Able to support a large number (~50) of serial connections.
Flexible enough to provide 2, 4 or 8 port connections in remote locations.
Provide a secure (SSH,SSL or kerberos) connection from the users PC to the serial console.
Provide transparent access to all consoles (user only has to do command hostname in order to be connected).
Prevent spurious BREAK commands being sent to the serial console (this will cause the equivalent of a STOP(L1)-a on solaris).