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Now that Windows and Linux-based x86 servers are being deployed in heterogeneous environments to support mission-critical applications, the challenges of enterprise server management have become more complex than ever. But IT managers have new options as standards-based common management framework solutions are emerging to fill the void.

Until recently, the overwhelming majority of enterprise servers running mission-critical applications were firmly grounded in the world of Unix and mainframe technologies. While servers based on the Intel x86 microprocessor architecture, typically running Linux or Microsoft Windows operating systems, have proliferated steadily in the market, these machines have typically been confined to non-critical tasks. Server downtime or application failure did not carry the risk of bringing an enterprise's business operations to its knees.

But all of that is changing. With improvements in the Windows and Linux server operating systems over the past few years, more and more x86 servers are now being used for business-critical applications. According to market research firm International Data Corp., x86 server shipments are projected to grow to over five million units a year by 2006. In addition, blade servers - which were introduced in 2001 - are now being adopted in many data centers and enterprises. Because of the flexibility and cost advantages these machines provide, blade servers are expected to have the highest growth rate of any server platform, with a 25 percent share of the total 7.6 million units of x86 servers by 2007.

As a result of this evolution, today's enterprise data centers are now usually equipped with servers from many different vendors, each of which has its own management tools. These heterogeneous and incompatible data center elements are creating unforeseen complexity and management challenges for IT professionals, leading to hidden expenses not usually reflected in the total cost of ownership caldilations for the operation of an enterprise data center.

Different Tools for Different Servers

IT managers often add new servers and hardware to their enterprise computing environments simply because more performance is required. And the decision to buy that hardware is often based on time-critical business performance requirements and cost factors, resulting in heterogeneous, rather than homogeneous, IT environments.

Because of this trend, IT administrators are now forced to deal with and master many different server management tools, some proprietary to specific server brands. This constraint of using proprietary tools has revealed that the most substantial costs facing an enterprise are not related to the purchase of a server, but to the ongoing operations and management of it. That's because, while some system vendors provide applications that perform hardware monitoring and management, the tools available from that vendor are usually proprietary and only applicable to that particular hardware.

This has led to a phenomenon known as "console-hopping," whereby IT administrators have to work with numerous management applications and inefficiently hop from one console to another to monitor and manage all of their disparate hardware platforms.

The problem is escalating. Because custom tools are limited in features and functionality, additional management tools are usually needed to deal with other aspects of system management. And because blade servers are housed in a chassis and share many of its elements, yet even another set of management tools that is unique to blade servers must be accommodated. All of these factors are dramatically increasing the expense of maintaining and managing data centers. Management costs have now escalated to levels that are several times the price of the initial hardware purchase.

IPMI: Industry-Standard Methodology

Fortunately for IT professionals, help is on the way in the form of the IPMI (Intelligent Platform Management Interface) specification. IPMI is a platform management standard defined by industry leaders including Intel, Dell, HP, and NEC, as intended to solve the problem of managing dissimilar hardware platforms. IPMI provides the industry with a standard methodology for accessing and controlling bare-metal hardware, even without software installed or running, effectively creating a standardized hardware management layer. Regardless of the nature of the underlying hardware, server management solutions can now use the one standard interface methodology to discover and communicate with a hardware platform, dynamically gather its relevant information and monitor its health and performance conditions.

Using IPMI as the foundation, IT professionals now have a pathway for remotely discovering, controlling and managing x86-based IPMI-enabled hardware platforms that used to be incompatible from the management standpoint from different systems vendors. This includes bare metal management (regardless of whether the server is turned on or the operating system is functional) and image deployment, all the way up to system performance and health monitoring of the server platforms. While many server platforms already support the IPMI standard today, it's expected that by the end of 2004, at least 70 percent of all new servers will support this new management interface.

There is currently a long list of IPMI adopters that are endorsing the standard (see www.intel.com/design/servers/ipmi/adopterlist.htm).

IPMI support is usually implemented within a baseboard management controller (BMC) that is part of an autonomous, intelligent subsystem on the server platform. This BMC design allows the management application to determine the health of and maintain control of the server, regardless of whether the server is running or non-operational.

IPMI: Remote Possibilities

Inevitably, servers will experience failures due to hardware or applications issues. As previously mentioned, the resolution of these failures has typically required local IT administrators to be physically in front of the "failed" servers to perform those tasks necessary to get the servers back to normal operation.

This necessary IT resource, associated travel costs and time delays have increased the risk of failure in meeting service level agreements. Remote, "lights-out" solutions have been expensive and proprietary, and lacked support for heterogeneous servers. As a result, data centers did not typically use the remote management solutions with their x86-servers.

With IPMI, however, IT professionals can now achieve lights-out management remotely, efficiently and cost-effectively. Costs are identifiable rather than variable with IPMI-enabled servers and associated management software. To provide remote access to the interface, the microcontrollerbased IPMI subsystem will generally share an Ethernet channel with the platform, or may have its own dedicated Ethernet controller.

This channel constitutes the platform's connection onto the management network. The management channels of the individual IPMI servers, together with the management server, can all be connected to this same management network.

Despite these capabilities, problems still arise. While many vendors may provide simple hardware management applications that utilize the IPMI interface, these applications typically are not designed to manage more than a handful of servers, nor do they include the functions and capabilities to manage the servers up through the OS level. Most management software that comes with an IPMI server focuses on elementary management of one server at a time.

What is ultimately required is a server management solution that enables groups of heterogeneous servers to be managed in an automated fashion from a single console, making operations faster and more accurate. With this level of intelligence, a group of IPMI servers would be capable of being rebooted using a single command. In addition, a new group of bare-metal servers could be provisioned without the need to log onto each server individually and repeat the provisioning tasks. These IPMI-enabled automated and remote management capabilities are opening the door to new management solutions, placing an emphasis on three critical functional server management parameters: provisioning, monitoring and managing today's heterogeneous enterprise server environments.

The Provisioning Challenge

Many of today's data centers and large enterprises have site licenses, which mean that new servers are typically acquired without an operating system installed. Provisioning these bare-metal servers is both time- and labor-intensive, as it involves either loading up the operating system and the applications individually, or setting up a "golden" image for each server and then copying each image onto the appropriately matched bare-metal servers.