Abstract
Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) is a specification for computer hardware platform management and monitoring. The interface includes features for monitoring hardware sensors like fan speed and device temperature, inventory discovery, event propagation and logging. All IPMI functionality is accessible without the host operating system running. With its wide support across hardware vendors and the backing of a standardization committee, it is a compelling instrumentation for integration into a control system for large experimental physics projects. Integrating IPMI into EPICS provides the benefit of centralized monitoring, archiving and alarming integrated with the facility control system. A new project has been started to enable this capability by creating a native EPICS device driver built on the open-source FreeIPMI library for the remote host connection interface. The driver supports automatic system components discovery for creating EPICS database templates, detailed device information from Field Replaceable Unit interface, sensor monitoring with remote threshold management, geographical PV addressing in PICMG based platforms and PICMG front panel lights readout.
