The Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) is a remote hardware health monitoring and management system that defines interfaces for use in monitoring the physical health of servers, such as temperature, voltage, fans, power supplies and chassis. It was developed by Dell, HP, Intel and NEC, but has many more industry promoters, adopters and contributors.
The IPMI Initiative derives its name from the main specification (IPMI), which defines the messages and system interface to platform management hardware. It comprises three specifications:
- Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI)
- Intelligent Platform Management Bus (IPMB)
- Intelligent Chassis Management Bus (ICMB)
The IPMB specification defines an internal management bus for extending platform management within a chassis, while the ICMB specification defines the external management bus between IPMI-enabled systems. [Specifications adapted from the Intel IPMI Web page]
