Introduction; What Is Uefi - HPE ProLiant Gen9 User Manual

Introduction

The UEFI System Utilities is embedded in the system ROM. Its features enable you to perform a wide range
of configuration activities, including:
• Configuring system devices and installed options.
• Enabling and disabling system features.
• Displaying system information.
• Selecting the primary boot controller or partition.
• Configuring memory options.
• Launching other pre-boot environments, such as the Embedded UEFI Shell and Intelligent Provisioning.
HPE ProLiant Gen9 servers and Synergy compute modules with UEFI can provide:
• Support for boot partitions larger than 2.2 TB. Such configurations could previously only be used for boot
drives when using RAID solutions such as Smart Array.
• Secure Boot that enables the system firmware, option card firmware, operating systems, and software
collaborate to enhance platform security.
• An Embedded UEFI Shell that provides a pre-boot environment for running scripts and tools.
• Operating system specific functionality, such as Microsoft Windows 2012, which supports several features
only when installed in UEFI mode.
• Boot support for option cards that only support a UEFI option ROM.

What is UEFI?

Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) defines the interface between the operating system and
platform firmware during the boot, or start-up process. Compared to BIOS, UEFI supports advanced pre-boot
user interfaces. The UEFI network stack enables implementation on a richer network-based OS deployment
environment while still supporting traditional PXE deployments. UEFI supports both IPv4 and IPv6 networks.
In addition, features such as Secure Boot enable platform vendors to implement an OS-agnostic approach to
securing systems in the pre-boot environment.
The ROM-Based Setup Utility (RBSU) functionality is available from the UEFI interface along with additional
configuration options.
Introduction 13