Datacenter Management
Centralized Control of Service Processors

Simplify Datacenter Management
with Centralized Control of Service Processors

Preventing datacenter downtime is a top priority for datacenter managers, and for good reason. Across every industry, lost hourly revenue due to downtime is very expensive. Recent studies estimate that downtime costs as much as $2.8M per hour in lost revenue for firms in the energy industry, more than $2M per hour for firms in telecommunications, and $1M -$1.6M per hour for companies in other sectors, including manufacturing, finance, and information technology.⁽¹⁾
Even on good days, datacenter infrastructure management is a challenge, as administrators often have to control computer systems, serial devices, and power from multiple individual interfaces.

Centralized server management platforms simplify access to IT assets by aggregating access and providing a single management portal, thus eliminating the need to manage devices individually.
When downtime occurs, centralized server management platforms provide a unified point of entry that allows administrators to access, troubleshoot, power cycle, and bring servers and appliances back online quickly. In addition, on a day-to-day basis, centralized management allows administrators to more easily and efficiently do their jobs.

Integrated Onboard Technologies

Integrated onboard technologies, or service processors, are microcontrollers embedded in a motherboard of a server, a PCI card, or on the chassis of a server. They are independent from the main CPU and the system OS and are accessible through an Ethernet interface; dedicated (Out-of-Band) or shared with the data Ethernet (Sideband).⁽²⁾ Service processor features vary by manufacturer and include remote power-cycling of devices, monitoring of a server’s on-board instrumentation (temperature, CPU status, fan speed, and voltage), remote console access via Serial over LAN (SoL), and the ability to set event traps and perform OS-level shutdown.
Some service processors also allow for data logging, KVM control, and virtual media.
There are several different types of integrated onboard technologies made by various manufacturers. Details about specific service processors can be found in Table 1 at the end of this article.

Centralized Management

There are currently two centralized management platforms on the market, Avocent’s DSView and Raritan’s Command Center, which can be used to manage devices made by multiple vendors. Avocent also makes two service processor aggregation appliances that can be used to manage devices with integrated onboard technologies: the Cyclades OnBoard Service Processor Manager and the MergePoint 5200 Management Gateway Appliance. Both integrate with the DSView software and can also be managed by CLI. The Cyclades OnBoard provides out-of-band physical consolidation, power control, and monitoring, and requires only one external IP address for all connected devices. The MergePoint provides service processor “auto discovery”; hardware monitoring, group execution of commands; integrated support for Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) and Virtual Network Computing (VNC), and Serial over LAN (SoL) power control.
Raritan, whose embedded solutions include PCI cards, industry-standard “daughter” cards, and a single-chip solution, currently supports generic devices through its Command Center Secure Gateway appliance and is expected to further expand this support to include IPMI in Q1. Minicom, whose KVM.net product currently provides out-of-band KVM over IP management for mixed server environments, is expected to add support for integrated onboard technologies in Q2.

Bringing Together A Total Solution

Both Avocent and Raritan provide complete integrated management solutions that allow administrators to manage devices with embedded onboard technologies such as IPMI, iLO, and DRAC, as well as allowing them to manage equipment currently controlled through secure console servers or KVM over IP. In addition, some devices can integrate support for Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) and Virtual Network Computing (VNC), so that full server management coverage (in-band and out-of-band) can take place from one user interface. 42U’s knowledgeable sales engineers can provide you with a customized business-specific solution that will help you accomplish your goals.


Table 1: Integrated Onboard Technologies/Service Processors