Server Management Guide

Introduction
Intel
®
Server Boards and Server Platforms Server Management Guide 3
provided by management applications and the OS. System management software such as Intel
®
System
Management Software and the OS can provide a more sophisticated control, error handling and
alerting, than can be directly provided by the platform management subsystem.
Out-of-Band (OOB)
This involves communicating directly to the BMC and bypassing the OS.
Platform status information can also be obtained and recovery actions can be initiated under situations
where the system management software and normal ‘in-band’ management mechanisms are
unavailable.
System Event Log (SEL)
The BMC provides a centralized, non-volatile repository for critical, warning, and informational
system events called the System Event Log or SEL. By having the BMC manage the SEL and logging
functions, it helps to ensure that ‘post-mortem’ logging information is available should a failure occur
that disables the systems processor(s).
The BMC allows access to SEL through in-band and out-of-band mechanisms. The tools or utilities are
as like Intel
®
SELViewer and open sourced ipmitool.
Asset information (FRU information)
The BMC provides access to non-volatile asset\inventory data of major system components called
Field Replaceable Unit (FRU) information. Access to FRU information provides vital data such as
serial numbers and part numbers for various replaceable boards and
other components.
The BMC allows access to FRU through in-band and out-of-band mechanisms.
Sensor Monitoring
The BMC provides monitoring and control of system sensors. The BMC polls system sensors to
monitor and report system health. These sensors include soft sensors that are used for reporting system
state and events, and hardware sensors. The most popular forms of monitoring are System voltage
monitoring, System temperature monitoring, system fans and power supplies monitoring.
The BMC allows access to sensor data through in-band and out-of-band mechanisms.
Fan speed control and Fan speed monitoring
The BMC monitors and controls the system fans. For each fan, a fan speed sensor provides fan failure
detection. Some systems provide fan presence detection in which the BMC maps into per-fan presence
sensors. The BMC can control the speed of some fans. Controllable fans are divided into fan domains
in which there is a separate fan speed control for each domain and a separate fan control policy
configurable for each domain.
A fan domain can have a set of temperature and fan sensors associated with it. These are used to
determine the current fan domain state. A fan domain has three states: sleep, nominal, and boost.
Remote management through LAN
Remote management through LAN is made possible by IPMI over LAN, which used to transfer IPMI
messages between the Baseboard Management Controller and remote management software through a
side-band channel redirected from the NIC to the BMC. The BMC has its own Media Access Control
(MAC) address and IP address, which are different from the MAC address and IP address shown by