Business Week has analysed that HP turned its server and storage division around with the launch of systems with a killer feature that HP labelled as Lights Out.  According to the review article, Lights Out means IT people could turn off the lights in the server room and maintain servers directly from the comfort of their own chairs, in their own office.  The idea appeals as it is not much fun to work in a jet-noisy environment.  Supermicro has provided a similar function for several years and it seems that our channel people have not yet taken on this technology widely.  The technology is based on an open standard called Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI).

Some may have misunderstood this with VNC or RDP etc.  IPMI covers out-of-band server control and this includes situations of hardware failure or operating systems that are not running.  VNC and the like require the OS to be running as they are an application-level piece of software.  Obviously, VNC fails to work if the server hardware or OS is down.  We call them in-band control applications - see diagram below.

IPMI is implemented at a hardware level.  Imagine it as an add-on card if you like.  The card connects to the system bus of the motherboard and not with a PCI, PCI-X or PCI-E slot. The card has direct access to the BIOS and other hardware on the motherboard.  As long as there is +5VSB of electricity to energise the motherboard, IPMI would work.  Through IPMI, we would be able to power down the server, change the BIOS settings, and restart the server for example.  For sure, VNC cannot offer the same functionality.

Supermicro implements IPMI with a dedicated NIC port as the interface for system administrators.  This port would become the 3rd Gigabit Ethernet port on most Supermicro server motherboards.  The port does not need a dedicated link and can be connected to the standard LAN switch so that one with the authority and skills can perform server maintenance from any desktop on the same network.

In addition to whatever information IPMI accesses and provides (such as system temperatures and fan speeds), Supermicro has implemented KVM and Media over IP as additional tools for system administration.  Media over IP is a killer feature as a USB thumb drive or CD on the administrator's desktop can be connected directly to the server.  This allows software to be changed or updated, or rebooting of the server from the media.

We have been supplying IPMI as an option so far but we now plan to offer it integrated on the motherboard in 2010. This is mainly a cost issue as the integrated version reduces the cost of the function substantially.  In addition, Compucon New Zealand will offer a service to monitor health of customer servers remotely for a small fee in 2010.  Feel free to contact This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it   for further information as desired.

Editor