Interface support boosts server availability

The latest release of OSA Server Manager software now supports the Service Availability Forum Hardware Platform Interface (SA Forum/HPI).

The latest release of OSA Server Manager software now supports the Service Availability Forum Hardware Platform Interface (SA Forum/HPI).

By adding HPI, additional levels of high availability (HA) are provided.

This support builds on OSA's existing HPI activities - licensing Intel's software implementation of the SA Forum/HPI specification and participating as a contributing member of the SA Forum to promote IPMI integration with HPI.

The new release of OSA Server Manager adds HPI-support to IPMI-enabled products based on Windows and Linux.

OSA Server Manager provides a standards-based, centralised interface to health information including alerts, power control and asset tracking functions.

New HA features are now realised with the addition of HPI to OSA's Server Manager.

For example, support for hot swap and redundancy for blade servers, and other telecommunications hardware now exist in Server Manager.

HPI support combined with OSA's existing IPMI products offers vendors unparalleled, multiplatform management products and building blocks based on open industry standards and technologies.

New features from IPMI v2.0, announced in February, will also be supported, such as enabling secure management using console redirection over the LAN.

This makes OSA Server Manager the first product from an independent software vendor to combine HPI and IPMI v2.0 features.

In addition to supporting IPMI mandatory and optional features, products can also be tailored to meet individual customer needs for differentiation.

SA Forum/HPI support will be generally available to vendors in May 2004.

Pricing varies by implementation.

"This commitment to SA Forum/HPI underscores OSA's objective to drive integration of management standards.

OSA's focus on standards-based embedded management solutions like IPMI 2.0, and now HPI, offers enhanced manageability products to Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture (AdvancedTCA) and other blade and telecommunications vendors that are compliant and seamlessly integrated with existing and future IPMI building blocks", said Mark Lee, CEO and President of OSA.

RHK, an industry research firm, recently valued the AdvancedTCA market at $3.7 billion by 2007.

For data centres, the cost of operations and administration represents between 50 and 70% of the total cost of ownership.

Addressing this cost is key for users and vendors alike.

Traditional management solutions are limited during the boot phase or when the operating system (OS) does not respond.

This is because these management solutions run as agents in the OS, making them dependent on the state of the OS.

OSA Server Manager offers a unique approach to enhancing management during the boot phase (OS is not loaded) or when the OS is unresponsive.

Management over LAN allows administrators to manage or power-cycle servers or individual blades remotely by directly accessing the IPMI controller, resolving service outages even when the OS is unresponsive.

Increasingly, customers are purchasing solutions that are cross-platform and that support industry standards.

These characteristics are key to enabling next generation virtualisation and automation environments.

By using SA Forum/HPI with web based enterprise management standards like the Common Information Model, together with Simple Object Access Protocol and IPMI v2.0, users are assured of upward compatibility with new operating environments that support these and other management standards.

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