OS.Server.ArchitectureAuthor: Ofa Date: 2015.1.5

Agenda

BMC

IPMI

IRQ

SMBIOS

Polling mode

BMC-Baseboard Management Controller

The intelligence in the IPMI architecture.

Manages the interface between system management software and platform hardware.

IPMI-Intelligent Platform Management Interface

A set of computer interface specifications for an autonomous computer subsystem

Provides management and monitoring capabilities independently of the host system's CPU, firmware (BIOS or UEFI) and operating system.

IPMI functions can work in any of three scenarios:

before an OS has booted (allowing, for example, the remote monitoring or changing of BIOS settings)

when the system is powered down

after OS or system failure – the key characteristic of IPMI compared with in-band system management such as by remote login to the operating system using SSH

IRQ-Interrupt ReQuest

A hardware signal sent to the processor that temporarily stops a running program and allows a special program, an interrupt handler, to run instead.

SMBIOS-System Management BIOSDefines data structures (and access methods) that can be used to read information stored in the BIOS of a computer.

Polling ModeActively sampling the status of an external device by a client program as a synchronous activity.

Polling is sometimes used synonymously with busy-wait polling (busy waiting). In this situation, when an I/O operation is required, the computer does nothing other than check the status of the I/O device until it is ready, at which point the device is accessed.