Kontron S5500 SEL Troubleshooting - Manual (Page 11)

Introduction System Event Log Troubleshooting Guide for Intel® S5500/S3420 series Server Boards
2 Intel order number G74211-001 Revision 1.0
 The baseboard management controller and chassis
 The baseboard management controller and systems management software
 Between servers
IPMI enables the following:
 Common access to platform management information, consisting of:
- Local access from systems management software
- Remote access from LAN
- Inter-chassis access from Intelligent Chassis Management Bus
- Access from LAN, serial/modem, IPMB, PCI SMBus*, or ICMB, available even if the
processor is down
 IPMI interface isolates systems management software from hardware.
 Hardware advancements can be made without impacting the systems management
software.
 IPMI facilitates cross-platform management software.
You can find more information on IPMI at the following URL:
http://www.intel.com/design/servers/ipmi
1.2.2 Baseboard Management Controller (BMC)
A baseboard management controller (BMC) is a specialized microcontroller embedded on most
Intel
® Server Boards. The BMC is the heart of the IPMI architecture and provides the
intelligence behind intelligent platform management, that is, the autonomous monitoring and
recovery features implemented directly in platform management hardware and firmware.
Different types of sensors built into the computer system report to the BMC on parameters such
as temperature, cooling fan speeds, power mode, operating system status, and so on. The BMC
monitors the system for critical events by communicating with various sensors on the system
board; it sends alerts and logs events when certain parameters exceed their preset thresholds,
indicating a potential failure of the system. The administrator can also remotely communicate
with the BMC to take some corrective action such as resetting or power cycling the system to
get a hung OS running again. These abilities save on the total cost of ownership of a system.
For Intel ® server boards and Intel ® Server platforms, the BMC supports the industry-standard
IPMI 2.0 Specification, enabling you to configure, monitor, and recover systems remotely.
1.2.2.1 System Event Log (SEL)
The BMC provides a centralized, non-volatile repository for critical, warning, and informational
system events called the System Event Log or SEL. By having the BMC manage the SEL and
logging functions, it helps to ensure that ‘post-mortem’ logging information is available should a
failure occur that disables the systems processor(s).