As the console interfaces on some systems are designed to communicate with a relatively slow human operator, the interface is typically not able to handle high data traffic rates. Because of this, the software that manages the communications with managed UNIX and Linux systems is designed to behave somewhat like a human operator, to avoid data loss on the connection to the system.

Application message traffic is often directed to the system console. In these cases, Operations Sentinel can manage and control application traffic. However, it may be desirable to direct application traffic to a separate TELNET or SSH session. This helps to reduce console clutter and in some cases, relieves hardware congestion experienced on some console ports that are designed only for low volume traffic.