General Description 2-21

Remote Management Card (RMC)

Server management is concentrated in the Remote Management Card (RMC). The RMC and associated circuitry are powered from a 5Vdc standby voltage, which remains active when system power is switched off, but the ac power source is still on and connected.

The RMC supports the NEC DianaScope, which allows remote server management through networks. Events monitored by the manager system include over-temperature and over-voltage conditions, fan failure, or chassis intrusion.

Information on NEC DianaScope may be found in the NEC EXPRESSBUILDER CD-ROM.

One major function of the RMC is to autonomously monitor system management events, and log their occurrence in the nonvolatile System Event Log (SEL). The events being monitored include overtemperature and overvoltage conditions, fan failure, or chassis intrusion. To enable accurate monitoring, the RMC maintains the nonvolatile Sensor Data Records (SDRs), from which sensor information can be retrieved. The RMC provides an ISA host interface to SCR sensor information, so that software running on the server can poll and retrieve the server's current status.

The RMC performs the following:

„Monitors server board temperature and voltage*

„Monitors processor presence and controls Fault Resilient Boot (FRB)

„Detects and indicates baseboard fan failure*

„Manages the SEL interface

„Manages the SDR Repository interface

„Monitors the SDR/SEL timestamp clock

„Monitors the system management watchdog timer

„Monitors the periodic SMI timer

„Monitors the event receiver

„Controls secure mode, including video blanking, diskette write-protect monitoring, and front panel lock/unlock initiation

„Controls Wake On LAN via Magic Packet support. *Also, NEC ESMPRO supports these features.