IBM 79784AU Product Manual page 10

A highly available and expandable, rack-dense, 1U dual-socket SMP server, for application
serving in Web environments
Please see the Legal Information section for important notices and information.
• Monitoring of system and battery voltage, system temperature, fans, power supplies,
processor and DIMM status
• Fan speed control
• Product ID and Family ID detection
• Highly secure remote power on/off
• System reset control
• NMI/SMI detection and generation
• System diagnostic LED control (power, HDD, activity, alerts, heartbeat)
• IPMI over LAN
• Serial Over LAN
• Proxy server support
• LAN messaging and alerting
• Text console redirection over LAN
• VLAN support
• Enhanced authentication and encryption algorithms (RMCP+, SHA-1, AES)
• Local update of BMC firmware
• Firmware firewall
• Support for IPMI v2.0 compliant management software (e.g., xCAT)
• Other mandatory and optional IPMI BMC functions
The BMC alerts IBM Director to anomalous environmental factors, such as voltage and thermal
conditions—even if the server has failed.
The x3550 also supports an optional IBM Remote Supervisor Adapter II SlimLine for additional
systems management capabilities, including:
• Predictive Failure Analysis for system fans
• Graphical console redirection over LAN
• Web-based out-of-band control
• Windows "blue screen" capture
• Remote virtual floppy and CD-ROM
• High-speed remote redirection of PCI video, keyboard and mouse
• SSL (Secure Socket Layer) and LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) support
IBM developed IBM Systems Director Active Energy Manager for x86 to put control of system
power-saving features at the fingertips of administrators. Active Energy Manager is designed to
take advantage of new features, such as monitoring power usage and balancing the performance
of the system according to available power input. It provides the ability to plan and predict power
consumption based on your hardware configuration. It also helps enable you to reduce the
infrastructure required for redundancy, by using fewer servers on smaller power feeds and
potentially lowering your overall data center support costs. It does this by inventorying all
components, then adding up the total power draw and tracking the usage. It also includes power
management and capping features to help administrators manage or reduce power usage.
Automatic Server Restart (ASR) helps reduce downtime by restarting the server automatically
in the event of a system lockup. ASR technology is a combination of hardware circuitry tied into
the server's system reset function and a device driver. As long as the server continues running,
the ASR watchdog timer will keep being reset, but if the operating system crashes or the
hardware freezes somehow the ASR software will be unable to reset the hardware timer. If the
timer is not reset within five minutes, it automatically triggers the ASR hardware, which
immediately restarts the server (and logs an ASR event with IBM Director). These features are
designed so that no more than five minutes can pass before the server is restarted.
Wake on LAN permits the server to be remotely powered on if it has been shut off. Once
powered up, the server can be controlled across the network, using the Preboot Execution
Environment (PXE).
Like Wake on LAN, PXE is system firmware. It enables software such as the optional IBM
Remote Deployment Manager to take control of a system before the BIOS, operating system or
applications are loaded (using Wake on LAN/PXE) and lets an administrator perform many low-
level tasks remotely that would otherwise require a visit to each system. These tasks may include
such things as formatting a hard disk drive, updating system firmware, or deploying a Windows or
Linux operating system.
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