SAN JOSE, Calif. June 10, 2003 OSA Technologies, Inc., the only Independent Software Vendor (ISV) dedicated to Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) software and firmware for the global server, blade, telecommunications, networking, and storage marketplace, today announced its latest Server Manager software now supports Linux. This new release extends OSAs current, shipping Windows-based IPMI server management product, OSA Server Manager, by now providing Linux customers with Last Mile management software. In this new product, Linux users can now realize remote management, monitoring, diagnostics and recovery at different phases of a system lifecycle: pre-boot, OS-present, and OS-unresponsive. This new release will be demonstrated at the Global Management Conference, presented by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF), in San Jose, during OSAs scheduled presentation, June 19 at 4:15 p.m.
DMTFs Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) and Common Information Model (CIM) allows for the exchange of management information including IPMI in a platform-independent and technology-neutral way, said Winston Bumpus, president of the DMTF. By bringing these capabilities to the growing numbers of Linux users, OSA is meeting an important need in the marketplace.
OSAs IPMI firmware and software solutions, available worldwide, are designed to be easily integrated into system vendors products. In addition to supporting IPMI mandatory and optional features, products can also be tailored to meet individual customer needs for differentiation. Linux support will be generally available in July 2003. Pricing varies by implementation.
About IPMI
IPMI defines a common interface to how vendors monitor their system hardware and sensors (temperature, voltage, fan, etc.), control system components (power, blades, etc.), log important system events (chassis intrusion, CPU performance, etc.), to allow administrators to remotely manage and recover failed systems. Promoted by Intel, Dell, HP and NEC, IPMI standardizes the way embedded management subsystems communicate with systems such as, the CPU, other embedded management subsystems and remote management applications. IPMIs roots are at the chip level. An embedded microcontroller is key to providing server management independent of the state or type of OS and CPU. This microcontroller, also known as a Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) is available at all times, so long as there is power to the server. IPMI v1.5 recently added the ability to access the BMC to retrieve system information over a LAN even without the OS being present providing true, Last Mile manageability a unique feature. IPMI also
complements and extends other management standards like CIM, SNMP, WMI, SAF/HPI, DMTFs System Management BIOS (SMBIOS) and DMTFs Alert Standard Format (ASF) to support Last Mile manageability. Since 1998, more than 140 vendors have adopted IPMI. This industry-wide support together with IPMIs capabilities make it an ideal fit for data centers, local campuses and distributed organizations – easing the way IT manages remote servers, blades and other network-attached devices.
OSA Server Manager Overview
For IT departments, the cost of server operations and administration represents between 50-70 percent of the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). This new release of OSA Server Manager provides critical hardware management for IPMI-aware servers based on Windows 2000, 2003 and now Linux. It provides a standards-based, centralized interface to server health information including alerts, power control and asset tracking functions. New features in IPMI v1.5 are also supported, enabling management such as power cycling over the LAN. This greatly eliminates the time consuming and costly task of diagnosing and responding to remote server outages, reducing overall TCO.
The managed servers hardware sensor information including Fan, Voltage, Temperature and chassis sensors, are gathered and presented within the OSA Management Console. Hardware event logs are retrieved and the events sorted by severity. When alerts are raised, specific actions can be chosen including, console and remote notifications. This makes it easy for the system administrator to stay in touch with hardware outages via pagers or emails, reducing the need to be tied to the management console.
Traditional management solutions are limited during the boot phase or when the OS does not respond. This is because these management solutions run as agents on top of an OS, so making them dependent on the OS being up and running. OSA Server Manager offers a unique approach to enhancing management during the boot phase or when the OS is not responding. Management over LAN allows system administrators to manage or power-cycle servers remotely by directly accessing the BMC, resolving service outages even when the OS is unresponsive.
Increasingly, customers are purchasing solutions that are cross-platform and that support industry standards as these two issues are seen as key to enabling virtualization and automation. By utilizing WBEM, together with Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and IPMI v1.5, users are assured of upward compatibility with new operating environments that support WBEM and other DMTF management standards.
The company is also working closely with leading CPU, chipset, and Gigabit Ethernet vendors to support their next generation silicon and reference platforms. With IPMI firmware and software, device and server manufacturers respectively can focus on their core competencies and reduce engineering costs and risks.
This new release meets an immediate need to support IPMI for the burgeoning Linux markets, said Mark Lee, CEO and President of OSA. “OSA is helping to drive the standardization of IPMI in servers, blades, telecom, networking, and storage, irrespective of the OS, reducing TCO for IT and data centers.
About OSA Technologies
OSA Technologies, Inc. provides embedded platform management solutions to the global server, blade, telecommunications, networking, and storage marketplace. It is the only Independent Software Vendor dedicated to IPMI software and firmware. OSA’s solutions are well entrenched through partnerships with major silicon vendors, system and design manufacturers, and branded OEMs. Building on its first mover advantage, OSA has strategically set up sales, research and development centers in San Jose, Taipei and Shanghai to more closely meet the IPMI needs of system vendors worldwide. Ultimately, OSA gives IT end-users a centralized method to manage a server’s complete health, including Last Mile remote management and recovery capabilities. System vendors are currently shipping OSA-enabled products worldwide. Co-founded in 2000 by a former Intel team, the company has secured a combined $20 million in funding from strategic investors including, AsiaVest, FAT Capital, Foxconn, Intel Capital, Storm Ventures,
Sycamore Ventures, and other strategic investors. The company is headquartered in San Jose, California. More information about OSA can be found at www.osatechnologies.com.
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Link: osatechnologies.com
