IPMI
What is it?
The IPMI (Intelligent Platform Management Interface) is a set of industry standard specifications for hardware-based subsystems that provide management and monitoring capabilities independently of the host system's CPU, firmware and operating system. Used together with a BMC (Baseboard Management Controller), IPMI allows a system administrator to perform many different monitoring and management tasks remotely without having to be physically located next to and connected to the system – such as power cycling a server, installing BIOS or firmware updates, and monitoring fan speeds and temperatures.
Why do you need it?
Since IPMI is an industry standard hardware-level message-based interface specification (jointly developed and first published in 1998 by Intel, Dell, Hewlett Packard, NEC and others), it allows a system administrator to connect with and control a server's BMC regardless of the BMC brand or type, or the host system's operating system or management software.
The key advantage of IPMI is that allows a system administrator to perform many different monitoring and management tasks remotely without having to be physically located next to and connected to the system – such as power cycling a server, installing BIOS or firmware updates, and monitoring fan speeds and temperatures. In modern data centers which could have hundreds or racks or thousands of servers, it would be impossible to do without it. As a result, all modern servers and other devices used in a data center (such as switches, storage devices, power supply devices etc.) are all enabled with IPMI.
How is GIGABYTE helpful?
GIGABYTE's server systems and motherboards all include IPMI by featuring an Aspeed AST2300 / 2400 / 2500 Series BMC and GIGABTYE Management Console (AMI MegaRAC SP-X) firmware, which can be accessed either via a web-based graphical user interface or via command line interface.
