[Beowulf] impressions of Super Micro IPMI management cards?

[John Hearns]

On Mon, 2007-10-22 at 09:31 -0400, Chris Dagdigian wrote:

> 
> My needs are pretty minimal -- remote power control. BIOS access and  
> the ability to trigger a PXE boot off the network. Anything else is  
> just supplemental.
> 
> Does anyone have any experience/impressions of the "Supermicro  
> Intelligent Management" stuff?

Chris, I use Supermicro IPMI all the time.
Working with it today, actually.
They can do what you ask - power control, access to the BIOS via a
serial console etc.

They have a choice of either 'piggybacking' on the first on-board NIC, 
or of using a separate mini-USB style cable and a separate port which
clips into the rear of the server.
We tend to use the 'piggyback' variety.