American Megatrends Supports IPMI v2.0 Standard for Complete Server and Embedded Management.

Business Editors

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 2, 2004

American Megatrends:

Editorial Summary

-- AMI supports the new IPMI 2.0 specification by offering

building blocks and a complete solution for platform

management

-- IPMI provides high server availability, configurable

policy-based failure recovery, easy identification of failed

components and remote server access even when the system is in

an unresponsive state

-- AMI's IPMI firmware and software is backed by 20 years of

firmware experience and features a first-class graphical

firmware-porting environment

American Megatrends Inc. (AMI), a leading provider of storage and computing innovations worldwide, today announced its platform management firmware and software will support the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) 2.0 specification, which was unveiled at this week's Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco.

"AMI began development of the IPMI 2.0 draft specification features released last September at Fall IDF, and is well ahead in providing our IPMI partners with an IPMI 2.0 compliant management solution. We have worked with leading server and embedded motherboard vendors that implement IPMI 1.5 and continue to work with those vendors who will support IPMI 2.0," said Bill Clark, AMI software sales manager. "AMI recognizes the importance of IPMI 2.0 to enable its customers with the technology to improve server management, decrease downtime and costs, offer enhanced security, have greater flexibility and maximize resources."

The added features IPMI 2.0 supports will increase IT capabilities for customers and further improve remote management with enhanced security, remote access and configuration capabilities. The next-generation IPMI 2.0, which is compatible with previous IPMI versions, gives customers more cost-effective implementation options that provides greater flexibility and lowers server deployment costs.

As part of AMI's comprehensive support of the new IPMI 2.0 specification, AMI will offer several individual building blocks, including:

-- IPMI v2.0 firmware stack for multiple BMCs

-- Unified Management Server (UMS) application management

software that provides manageability of multiple devices from

a single station

-- AMIBIOS8 IPMI eModule enhanced IPMI features

These building blocks can also work together to create a complete solution for platform management that provides server and embedded motherboard vendors with advanced features like console redirection and BIOS/firmware flashing.

With its BIOS and server management expertise, AMI is in a unique position to offer a fully-featured IPMI-based management subsystem, added Clark.

AMI will support all the new features to the IPMI 2.0 specification including:

-- Serial Over LAN: provides serial to network conversion for

remote viewing of the boot screen and enables text based

operating systems to run utilities and diagnose malfunctions

causing interruptions in server functions

-- Enhanced authentication and encryption algorithms (RMCP+):

enhance user authentication and session creation protocols and

improve security through encryption of configuration and

payload data

-- VLAN support: provides a mechanism for partitioning a physical

network into one, or many, "virtual" networks for IPMI

management and isolates management traffic to the appropriate

"virtual" network

-- Firmware firewall: provides a mechanism to restrict certain

IPMI commands on selected interfaces and a way for software to

detect which commands are available. This can be used, for

example, to prevent the reset or shutdown of a blade server in

a rack

-- SMBus system interface: designed for low-cost IPMI

implementations where the BMC can locally communicate with the

system through the system's SMBus host controller

OEMs can easily port AMI's IPMI 2.0 server management solution onto their platforms using AMI's PMCP (Platform Management Configuration Program), a GUI-based utility that features sensor device porting, automatic SDR (Sensor Data Record) generation, and Platform Event Filtering (PEF) configuration. Also available is a SDK porting kit for further OEM customization. Additionally, OEMs will benefit from AMI's small firmware footprint and RTOS micro-kernel, meaning a small and highly efficient code base.

AMI also provides a Platform Development Kit (PDK) for OEMs to add their own functionality and customizations to AMI's IPMI firmware. This PDK provides OEMs with the ability to add OEM drivers, create OEM tasks, override/modify IPMI command handlers, hook/create interrupt handlers, blink LEDs, generate beep codes, add pre and post actions for different initialization and runtime events and provide core APIs.

AMI will demonstrate its IPMI 2.0 compliant technology at the Server Blade Summit, booth 305, March 9 through 11 at the Wyndham San Jose.

About AMI

Founded in 1985, American Megatrends Inc. (AMI) has dedicated its resources to providing OEMs, resellers and systems integrators with leading edge computer technologies. Privately held, AMI is best known for its BIOS, but also supplies state-of-the-art hardware, software and utilities to today's high-tech manufacturers. AMI offers high-density motherboards, disk subsystems and innovative storage solutions and is a voting member of the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA). Headquartered in Atlanta, AMI has locations in the U.S. and throughout the world including Chennai, Munich, Seoul, Taipei and Tokyo to better serve its customers. For more information on AMI, call 1-800-U-BUY-AMI or visit www.ami.com.