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Service Processors, Management Processor, IPMI, ILO, DRAC, AMT
The First Brick in the Foundation of the Self Healing Infrastructure
Service processors are dedicated internal processors on the motherboard of a managed device - a PCI card, blade server, router, fabric switch, telecommunications device (PBX), SCADA device. They are independent of the device's other functions and enable the device to be remotely (outside in) monitored or managed.
Enterprise computing and virtualization require highly available compute resources - what some call 101% availability. Hardware vendors have responded with embedded service processors based on open standards for ubiquitous devices regardless of operating system or hardware state.
Service processors enable:
- Remote power control
- Remote access of the BIOS
- SoL Console Access
- Health monitoring, including fan speed, temperature, electrical information
- Local logging of hardware/firmware events
- Secure authentication or username and password authorization
- VLAN support
- Support for blade servers, routers, fabric switches, servers, storage controllers
- Event tracking / logging
Service processors are available on almost all devices:
| HP | iLO |
| Dell | DRAC |
| IBM | RSA |
| SUN ALOM | ILOM |
| INTEL | CISCO |
| JUNIPER | BROCADE |
| SCADA | |
The advent of the service processor at the mother board enables "outside-in" management solutions to manage or monitor almost every device in an enterprise infrastructure.
Fewer than 11% of the service processors are used today due to:
- Ignorance of the service processor and its capabilities
- Proprietary architectures from one vendor to another even though and open standard may be used
- Traditional management systems (SYSLOG, SNMP) cannot access service processors
- High costs to implement enterprise-wide solutions
- Relatively new to the market and not clearly understood
- Improperly positioned by a vendor. (e.g. Systems Insight Manager from HP is often used to provision hardware – and does so via the service processor, however the rest of the time, the service processor is not used or is idle.)
Because the service processor provides remote access to the console and configuration of the hardware, it also has security, compliance, risk and availability impacts to the IT infrastructure. A solution addressing each of these areas is critical in today's regulatory and virtualized world.
TDI has been delivering software accessing the service processor and its antecedents since 1993 and has over 250 leading customers using TDI solutions to manage parts or their entire infrastructure from anywhere, via a web browser.
The TDI "outside in" infrastructure management solution integrates with all major vendors, HP, IBM, SUN, PC's bypassing any of the proprietary issues. From a single TDI window, one can manage devices from virtually any hardware vendor regardless of operating system state, hardware configuration or whether it is powered on or off.
TDI's solutions implement in a week or less and pay for themselves within 90 days of installation.
When coupled with the virtualized environment, the benefits of managing the enterprise-wide service processors explode.
And the first steps can be taken toward the "self-healing infrastructure."
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