Systems management refers to a broad set of responsibilities and activities focused on deploying, administering and maintaining an organization's IT infrastructure and systems.
As IT has become critical to the success of most companies and organizations, so has systems management.
Effective systems management tools and practices can make use of a wide range of technologies that enable administrators to perform management tasks efficiently.
A typical example is remote system access and control by IT managers, both when a system OS is present and when an OS is absent (for example, when a machine is shut-down over a vacation period).
These technologies are designed to:
- Minimize on-site IT maintenance
- Improve performance and system availability
- Maximize remote visibility and access to local systems by IT managers
For a functional and cost-efficient operation, all the parts of an IT infrastructure need to be coordinated, stable, and readily controllable. However, today's multi-vendor, distributed enterprise environments make systems management a critical challenge.
Basing a client or server platform on systems management standards helps ensure a base level of stable and efficient operation over a set period.
Choosing a Smarter Management Standard
One method of delivering platform capabilities such as manageability is through proprietary implementations - when platforms are designed around a single vendor or on limited, proprietary technologies.
While platforms based on proprietary implementations can be effective solutions, they limit a customer's choice, their flexibility to respond to business needs, and can carry hidden premiums in terms of ongoing costs.
As computing technologies rapidly evolve, proprietary systems management solutions can even jeopardize security and stability if they cannot keep up with new requirements.
When industry leaders come together as a group to develop standards that are inclusive of multiple vendors, products, and technologies, customers gain the following benefits:
- Flexibility to choose a solution from many interoperable options that best match their specific needs
- Lower systems management complexity which reduces the burden on IT administrators and departments
- Associated total cost-of-ownership savings over proprietary implementations from a single supplier
- Long-term stability and integrated security across all components
Open Standards through Cooperative Collaboration
The Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) is the industry organization leading development, adoption, and promotion of interoperable enterprise and systems management standards.
It has more than 4,000 active participants representing 44 countries and nearly 200 entities.
The DMTF's mission is to drive and enable non-proprietary industry standard interfaces for system manageability, which allow the ecosystem of IT providers to deliver platforms and solutions that reduce overall IT management costs.
As an active member of the DMTF and a member of its Board of Directors, AMD is committed to freedom from the constraints of proprietary architectures.
Our collaborative leadership in the DMTF has resulted in the development of standards that make it easier than ever for customers to manage increasingly diverse IT environments, including standards for desktop and mobile clients (DASH) and for servers (SMASH).
We've applied these standards to developing our own future-ready platform solutions for our industry partners and customers.
The DMTF Board of Directors also includes representatives from Broadcom, Dell, EMC, Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Novell, Sun Microsystems, Symantec, and WBEM Solutions.
Systems Management for Desktop and Notebook Clients
IT managers are continually searching for ways to improve network service and reduce the cost of maintaining their computing infrastructures.
In a typical enterprise environment, IT managers have a manageability software suite to help them. But software alone cannot solve all manageability challenges. In many cases, hardware-based manageability tools can provide additional capabilities.
This need for different software, firmware, and hardware management technologies often means that administrators have to juggle a variety of tools and applications as they attempt to handle large numbers of networked clients.
They often face a lack of interoperability and consistency, particularly in out-of-band, remote, and out-of-service situations.
Open Standards for Client Management
The Desktop and Mobile Architecture for System Hardware (DASH) Initiative is a suite of specifications developed by the DMTF that delivers open standards-based Web services management for desktop and mobile client systems.
DASH is a comprehensive framework that provides the next generation of standards for secure out-of-band and remote management of desktop and mobile systems in multi-vendor, distributed enterprise environments.
DASH enables the same tools, syntax, semantics, and interfaces to work across a full range of products - traditional desktop systems, mobile and laptop computers, blade PCs, as well as "thin clients."
DASH allows the same management interfaces to be used, independent of system state. By using existing industry standard protocols, DASH facilitates interoperability over the network.
DASH also helps deliver more secure desktop and mobile management. It embraces industry standard network and transport layer encryption, authentication and authorization mechanisms, and establishes standard profiles for roles, authorization, and account management.
DASH shares a common foundation with the DMTF's SMASH server management standards for consistency and reliability between data center and client management.
DASH's integrated approach offers administrators increased simplicity and functionality in management solutions for the enterprise.
As the need for systems management tools increases, DASH is expected to be a widely implemented out-of-band management standard. Its components and functionality are being developed based on real-world needs.
DASH is positioned to integrate seamlessly into IT infrastructures, offering predictable interoperability - without the need for a limited set of proprietary hardware components.
Benefits of DASH for Administrators
A management tool or console that supports the DASH standard can monitor and control a DASH client system in a consistent, vendor-independent way. This means common management tasks can be done in the same way for many different clients.
DASH's core functionality shortens the learning curve for administrators, provides flexibility for management tasks, reduces system complexity, and helps lower costs.
DASH enables several specific benefits, as outlined below.
Remote Power Control, Boot Control and Console Redirection
From a remote management console, administrators can power off, power on, or power cycle a client system.
They may want to power off systems to reduce energy usage. Or they may want power on a system, apply a patch, and power off again.
Remote Diagnostics
Help desk operators or administrators can remotely diagnose problems by remotely powering on a client system and redirecting the serial output to their remote console.
They can then specify the system boot from a diagnostic disk or device to perform troubleshooting remotely.
Discovery
From a management console, administrators can automatically discover the client systems they can manage with DASH. A managed client can then be queried in a standard way.
The console can also determine if a client supports DASH and which specific capabilities or features are accessible.
Asset Inventory
From their management tool or console, administrators can view hardware and software inventory for clients in the system.
For example, an admin can check the configuration of hardware components like memory or hard drives, or see what software and versions are installed. This inventory can be viewed whether a client system is powered on or off.
Remote System Health Monitoring
Administrators can remotely monitor the health of hardware components in the system, such as temperature, chassis intrusion, and fan operation.
AMD's Support of DASH
As a board member of the DMTF, AMD is actively involved in defining and evolving DASH standards.
AMD's commitment to open standards-based security and manageability translates into AMD technology-based solutions that keep businesses ready for new challenges without detracting from their everyday computing needs.
Additionally, AMD offers the AMD SIMFIRE™ Validation Test Suite - a set of interoperability testing tools that can be used by developers of firmware and management applications to ensure interoperability of their implementations with other DASH solutions across the industry.
These tools, which are jointly developed with other companies, address the need to shorten the time between the introduction of a new standard and the availability of interoperable solutions for end users.
They are immediately available to developers to help accelerate the implementation of interoperable DASH solutions.
These efforts provide firmware and management application developers with a set of tools for testing interoperability for DASH solutions, in order to help them bring products to market more quickly.
By enabling developers and vendors to test their systems management applications and implementations for DASH standards, these test tools help ensure solutions from multiple vendors can interoperate in an IT environment and allow existing IT administrators to seamlessly and predictably manage their hardware assets.
Systems Management for Servers
IT managers face increasing complexity in the data center.
As IT organizations expand into multiple server platforms across diverse departments, sites, and geographies, their server management strategy will determine their success in terms of functionality and operating expense.
Associated cost control is a major concern because an IT organization's largest expense is typically related to ongoing network and systems management.
Not long ago, administrators had limited options. There were no comprehensive cross-platform standards that addressed their need to directly manage servers from multiple vendors.
This led hardware manufacturers to develop assorted tool sets to manage systems via in-band and out-of-band connections for different operating systems and system states.
Today, enterprise server management in many data centers is comprised of a variety of similar tools and applications for each vendor platform deployed. In many cases, administrators have customized the original management tools into ones more specialized for their unique environment, installation, and product.
The resulting array of management commands and tools that differ by provider can be extremely inefficient - and therefore, expensive - in terms of ongoing operational costs.
Open Standards for Server Systems Management
The DMTF created the Systems Management Architecture for Server Hardware (SMASH) Initiative to help address the problems cross platform server management.
SMASH includes a suite of specifications that deliver architectural semantics, standard industry protocols, and profiles to unify the management of the data center and increase productivity.
SMASH specifies both standard command line protocol and web services interfaces.
Administrators often need to interactively manage various systems using a specific command. But servers from different vendors often require different commands for completing the same task.
The SMASH command line protocol provides an interface to heterogeneous servers independent of machine state, operating system or OS state, system topology or access method. It is a standard method for local and remote management of server hardware using out-of-band communication.
The SMASH web services interface provides a standard way for system management vendors to support diversified server management in their tools and implementations.
By offering consistent server management that handles multi-vendor server monitoring and management tasks, managers can improve interoperability, increase efficiency and control operational expenses.
Benefits of SMASH for Administrators
By deploying servers and management solutions that support SMASH server management standards, administrators can manage their multi-vendor server environments in a consistent manner.
SMASH offers flexibility in that it supports a variety of server platforms - from stand-alone servers, to blades, to racks. It is also supports management independent of machine or OS state.
SMASH includes both a command line protocol and web services protocol. This means that administrators can manage their servers for ad hoc tasks using a consistent command set. Or they can write one script that runs against multiple vendor servers.
The web services protocol allows management tool vendors to easily support management of various types of servers in their consoles and tools.
Thus, the administrator can consolidate management of their diverse server environment into a single management console.
Systems Management at the Hardware Level
Platform hardware management generally refers to the remote monitoring of platform hardware variables such as fan speed, voltages, CPU and enclosure temperatures along with a wide range of other sensors.
It also implies the ability to remotely control the power state of the platform and to reset the system back into an operational state should it "hang."
Despite the advances made in standardizing manageability firmware and software interfaces, many manageability hardware subsystems are still proprietary and are often soldered to the baseboard.
This can make manageability hardware subsystems inflexible in terms of upgrade path and a cost liability for IT managers.
Open Platform Management Architecture
AMD led the development of the Open Platform Management Architecture (OPMA) specification (1.4MB PDF) to address these issues.
OPMA is an open, royalty free standard for connecting a modular, platform hardware management subsystem (an "mCard") to a computer motherboard.
A significant advantage of OPMA over previous generation management subsystem attachment methods is that OPMA does not consume a PCI socket. OPMA cards are also smaller and cheaper than other solutions.
The OPMA specification covers the following:
- Signal list
- Connector and pin out
- Power requirements
- Mechanical form factor
- BIOS and management controller firmware interfaces
- Division of management subsystem resources between motherboard and mCard.
OPMA enables a wide variety of mCards to individually interface to a given motherboard. It also enables a single mCard to individually interface to multiple motherboard models.
OPMA can support multiple management standards and implementations to deliver various levels of manageability required by the customer. For example, an OPMA card can support server standards like IPMI or SMASH.
OPMA was created as a joint technology development effort between AMD and platform management subsystem technology companies such as Agilent, AMI, Avocent, and Raritan Embedded Solutions (formerly called Peppercon).
Interoperability and Conformance Testing
As businesses grow and operational resources decentralize, IT departments are faced with increasing challenges of technology interoperability.
Today's enterprise typically supports a diverse IT infrastructure comprised of hardware, firmware, and software from multiple vendors.
The only way to ensure out-of-the-box interoperability is for the technology to be based on a management standard that all vendors understand and test uniformly.
To adhere to the DASH (for desktop and notebook client management) and SMASH (for cross-platform server management) standards, vendors can use conformance tests and tools from the DMTF Interoperability Committee during the design and development of their products.
The DMTF Interoperability Committee seeks to reduce the cost of integrating, managing and securing computing solutions constructed from multi-vendor components.
The work includes activities such as plugfests (testing events for vendors to evaluate the interoperability of their products), test tool development, and conformance certification programs.