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IPMI Hardware Instrumentation

  • Article

Applies To: Windows Server 2008

The Microsoft Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) driver and WMI IPMI provider supply data from the baseboard management controller (BMC) operations to the operating system.

The IPMI provider and driver perform the following operations remotely. These operations do not depend on the computer CPU, system BIOS, or operating system:

Monitoring

  • BMC sensor data or events from remote computers can be monitored either through the operating system (in-band) or by obtaining data directly from the BMC (out-of-band).

Logging

  • The IPMI provider lets you access the events recorded in the BMC System Event Log (SEL). Each event corresponds to a LogRecord instance in the IPMI provider classes. You can view these events by using the Event Collector tool, Wecutil.cmd. SEL events appear in the Hardware Events Log in the Windows Event Log. You can write custom events, such as retrieving bug check data and shutdown information, to the SEL.

Aspects

The following is a list of all aspects that are part of this managed entity:

Name Description

IPMI Driver Functionality

The IPMI driver supplies the IPMI WMI provider with data from the Baseboard Management Controller (BMC).

The IPMI driver is a Windows Driver Model (WDM) kernel mode driver that communicates with the BMC by using Keyboard Controller Style (KCS). For more information about driver installation, see Installation and Configuration for Windows Remote Management. The IPMI driver appears in the Device Manager as Microsoft SMBIOS Generic IPMI Compliant Device.

IPMI Provider Functionality

The IPMI provider is a standard WMI provider that supplies classes, methods, and properties that represent Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) configuration and sensor data. The IPMI provider obtains BMC data through the IPMI driver.

Management Infrastructure