n
Kiosks and digital signage systems are two
obvious examples of unstaffed embedded ap-
plications for which remote OOB management
is a must. Whenever the operating system
crashes, or switches off due to, say, a power
cut, it should be possible to analyse, reconfigure
and restart the system from elsewhere, inde-
pendent of whether the OS is working or not.
As a manufacturer of industrial-grade system
boards designed for continuous 24/7 operation
in challenging environments such as hot or
cold outdoor locations, Fujitsu Technology So-
lutions have made a point of supporting all
relevant system management protocols. This
enables users to integrate devices based on its
main boards into the OOB management system
of their choice.
As there is no single industry-standard system
maintenance software that caters to all the
specific needs of embedded systems, designers
and administrators so far have had to make
project-based decisions about which tools to
use. Both AMD and Intel processors offer the
possibility of out-of-band manageability, but
finding a comprehensive software solution for
addressing the relevant interfaces in day-to-
day practical operation is not easy.
While both of these major manufacturers
use the wide-spread DASH protocol, Intel
vPro platform also offers the proprietary
iAMT (Active Management Technology).
DASH, an acronym for desktop and mobile
architecture for system hardware, is a client
management standard developed by the Dis-
tributed Management Task Force (DMTF),
founded in 1992 by industry-leading IT hard-
ware companies. Designed for web-based re-
mote management, DASH is in its turn based
on DMTF Web Services for Management
(WS-Management). The fact that WS-Man-
agement was recently adopted as an interna-
tional standard by the International Organi-
zation for Standardization (ISO), and the In-
ternational Electrotechnical Commission
(IEC) in February 2013, underlines the im-
portant place DASH occupies in the market.
However, when it came to setting up DASH-
based software architecture for everyday sys-
tem maintenance, users have been pretty
much left to their own devices up until now.
Striving to give customers the most compre-
hensive support with design-in and mainte-
nance of their mainboards, Fujitsu has been
searching for an OOB manageability solution
specially suited to embedded computing needs
on all relevant platforms. This has now resulted
in a technology partnership with American
Megatrends, Inc. (AMI), a global leader in
BIOS, remote management and network stor-
age technology. Fujitsu have decided to rec-
ommend the AMI MegaRAC XMS managea-
bility solution for both their desktop and in-
dustrial mainboards. A full-functional version
of MegaRAC XMS which supports a limited
number of up to 3 nodes is already included
on the drivers and utilities DVD which comes
with each board.
The main benefit for users is the convenience
enabled by the single-pane-of-glass philosophy
of AMI which means that MegaRAC XMS
provides a centralised dashboard for remote
analysis and configuration of systems. An es-
sential prerequisite for this is that MegaRAC
XMS is platform- independent. It enables out-
of-band management via DASH as well as
iAMT. Apart from these protocols, structures
such as asset management and host provision-
ing also feed into the MegaRAC XMS software.
This also means that repetitive tasks that need
to be performed on a large number of machines
can be automated, thus freeing up the admin-
istrator time for other tasks.
Due to the fact that MegaRAC XMS was orig-
inally developed with a view to administering
servers in corporation-wide networks, the soft-
ware offers a variety of functionalities which
go beyond out-of-band manageability in a
narrow sense. These include monitoring of
system health (with alert functions), remote
control with cross-views of sensors and vari-
ables, and remote installation of software and
New perspectives in out-of-band
manageability
By Peter Hoser,
Fujitsu Technology Solutions
Out-of-band (OOB)
manageability is a particularly
important requirement
in embedded computing,
and in developing embedded
mainboards Fujitsu Technology
Solutions have placed great
emphasis on this. Their new
technology partnership
with American Megatrends
(AMI) creates even more
comprehensive OOB
management options.
Figure 1. The main benefit
for users is the convenience
enabled by AMI single-pane-
of-glass philosophy which
means that MegaRAC XMS
provides a centralised dash-
board for remote analysis and
configuration of systems.
28
April 2014
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