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What the Baseboard Management Controller does

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On certain hardware platforms, software is customized to support a new onboard controller in the Baseboard Management Controller (BMC). The BMC has command-line interface (CLI) commands you can use to manage the device remotely.

The BMC works similarly to the Service Processor (SP) and uses many of the same commands. The BMC allows you to do the following:

  • Configure the BMC network settings.

  • Access a node remotely and perform node management tasks such as diagnose, shut down, power-cycle, or reboot the node.

There are some differences between the SP and BMC:

  • The BMC completely controls the environmental monitoring of power supply elements, cooling elements, temperature sensors, voltage sensors, and current sensors. The BMC reports sensor information to ONTAP through IPMI.

  • Some of the high-availability (HA) and storage commands are different.

  • The BMC does not send AutoSupport messages.

Automatic firmware updates are also available when running ONTAP 9.2 GA or later with the following requirements:

  • BMC firmware revision 1.15 or later must be installed.

    Note

    A manual update is required to upgrade BMC firmware from 1.12 to 1.15 or later.

  • BMC automatically reboots after a firmware update is completed.

    Note

    Node operations are not impacted during a BMC reboot.