Emulex Sampling of Next Gen Integrated Baseboard Management Controllers

Emulex Corporation has begun its Pilot integrated Baseboard Management Controllers (iBMC), Pilot 3 iBMC, to Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), with general availability planned for the second half of 2011.

The Pilot 3 iBMC is an integrated lights-out management controller with high-performance, triple-core architecture that delivers embedded platform management while simultaneously providing high-performance remote Keyboard, Video and Mouse (KVM) console operation and high-speed remote storage support.

"Today’s data centers can range from hundreds of servers to hundreds of thousands, and include a bevy of components, security devices and power supplies, all of which require server management to reduce operational costs. The Pilot 3 iBMC is a powerful management controller that gives data center administrators everything they need to remotely manage these environments, from their servers, blades, storage and networking systems," said Steve Daheb, chief marketing officer and senior vice president of business development, Emulex. "As part of the acquisition of ServerEngines earlier this year, Emulex added the Pilot family of iBMCs to its product offerings. The currently shipping Pilot iBMCs are being sold to over 20 OEM customers. Continuing on this success, Pilot 3 iBMC is positioned to be the premier microcontroller embedded in platforms using the next-generation of Intel Xeon processers."

With over four million servers managed by Emulex’s Pilot family of iBMC solutions, Pilot is the first server management controller to integrate the BMC, super I/O, graphics controller and remote KVM and storage functionality into a single ASIC, providing cost savings to data center managers. In addition to the ongoing need for consolidation, as storage platforms move to x86-based architectures and scale-out designs, the need for an integrated BMC grows.

The third generation of Pilot iBMC is sampling with key tier-one OEMs and will be used in general purpose and blade servers, as well as networking and storage systems to support data center customers within the cloud computing, Web 2.0, high-performance (HPC) computing, enterprise and small to medium sized business markets. The Pilot 3 iBMC allows administrators to remotely boot physical and virtual servers from a variety of storage devices (CD-ROM, a DVD ROM, an ISO image, a floppy drive or USB flash disk) and remotely reboot a physical or virtual server following firmware, basic input/output system (BIOS) or operating system updates, further enabling operational efficiencies. In addition, the Emulex Pilot 3 iBMC auto-discovers system problems and increases the availability of servers because it monitors all the internal sensors and instrumentation within the server, delivering warnings of problems, whether they are firmware-related or hardware-related.

With the Pilot 3 iBMC, OEMs have the tools to accelerate product development. Emulex provides a Pilot 3 iBMC hardware design kit and evaluation cards are available. The Pilot 3 iBMC is supported by the leading platform management firmware solutions from American Megatrends Inc. (AMI) and Avocent.