Server Management Guide

Introduction
2 Intel
®
Server Boards and Server Platforms Server Management Guide
 IPMI interface isolates systems management software from hardware.
 Hardware advancements can be made without impacting the systems management software.
 IPMI facilitates cross-platform management software.
You can find more information on IPMI at the following URL:
http://www.intel.com/design/servers/ipmi.
1.1.2 Baseboard Management Controller (BMC)
A baseboard management controller (BMC) is a specialized microcontroller embedded on most Intel
®
server boards. The BMC is the heart of the IPMI architecture and provides the intelligence behind
intelligent platform management, that is, the autonomous monitoring and recovery features
implemented directly in platform management hardware and firmware.
Different types of sensors built into the computer system report to the BMC on parameters such as
temperature, cooling fan speeds, power mode, operating system status, and so on. The BMC monitors
the system for critical events by communicating with various sensors on the system board; it sends
alerts and logs events when certain parameters exceed their preset thresholds, indicating a potential
failure of the system. The administrator can also remotely communicate with the BMC to take some
corrective action such as resetting or power cycling the system to get a hung OS running again. These
abilities save on the total cost of ownership of a system.
For Intel
®
server boards and Intel
®
server platforms, the BMC supports the industry-standard IPMI 2.0
specification, enabling you to configure, monitor, and recover systems remotely.
1.1.3 Add-on Management Module (RMM) advanced features
Apart from BMC basic functions embedded along with Intel
®
server boards. The customer has an
option to add-on Remote Management Module (RMM) to Intel
®
server boards. Then the customers can
gain advanced features as like Remote KVM and Remote Media.
1.2 Management features supported in Intel
®
server
boards
With embedded BMC, Intel
®
server boards or Intel
®
server platforms are able to provide the following
system management monitoring and control features:
 In-band or Out-of-band communication
IPMI provides either in-band or out-of-band (OOB) communication to the computer hardware and
firmware, which system administrators can use to monitor system health and manage the system.
 In-Band
This involves communicating to the BMC by utilizing the OS services through server management
software agents. This provides an enhanced level of manageability by providing in-band access to the
IPMI management information and integrating IPMI with the additional management functions