An intelligent board management controller (iBMC) from Taiwanese firm Advantech can reduce downtime for remote IoT edge management.

The company developed the iBMC to simplify the management of remote systems and edge devices. This embedded hardware-based technology allows administrators to conduct power management tasks – such as power on-off, force shutdown and system reboot – remotely even in abnormal or out-of-range conditions, such as during a software failure or operating system (OS) crash.

This is known as out-of-band power management and it provides a secondary communication channel for accessing and controlling equipment within an infrastructure network.

For industrial applications such as continuous manufacturing and AI-based edge computing, interruptions or failures can cause lengthy downtime, leading to losses in productivity. In most circumstances, simply restarting the device can restore system functionality. However, for devices deployed in the field or at the edge, this can cause delays if technicians need to restart devices manually onsite.

By enabling corrective action through remote out-of-band power management, an iBMC not only eliminates onsite maintenance, but also reduces system downtime and operational costs.

IoT infrastructure typically involves hundreds of devices deployed at numerous geographically dispersed sites. Advantech’s Wise-DeviceOn software platform is designed for remote management of multiple interconnected industrial IoT devices. With the integration of iBMC technology, this can serve as both an in-band and out-of-band management system that enables access, configuration, monitoring, analysis and control of all IoT network assets from a single central platform. This simplifies the management of remote servers, systems and peripherals for various applications.

To ensure ease of integration, the controller is compatible with many of Advantech’s IPC offerings, including the Uno-348/148 control cabinet PCs and TPC-B610 box PCs, as well as the AIMB-787 motherboard, ACP-4340 4U rackmount system and MIC-770 V2 fanless modular IPC depending on bios version. Moreover, iBMC technology will be supported by many soon-to-be-released IPCs featuring tenth-generation Intel Core i3, i5, i7 and i9, as well as Pentium and Celeron CPUs.

Features include remote power management and control even during software or OS failures, out-of-band management function configurable in the bios, support for entry-level and high-end IPCs, and integration with Wise-DeviceOn platform as a remote device management tool.