Intel S2600GZ S2600GZ/GL - Page 63

Technology Support Intel® Server Board S2600GZ/GL TPS information about VT-x, VT-d, and VT-c, a good reference is Enabling Intel® Virtualization Technology Features and Benefits White Paper. 5.3 Intel® Intelligent Power Node Manager Data centers are faced with power and cooling challenges that are driven by increasing numbers of servers deployed and server density in the face of several data center power and cooling constraints. In this type of environment, Information Technology (IT) needs the ability to monitor actual platform power consumption and control power allocation to servers and racks in order to solve specific data center problems including the following issues. Table 14. Intel® Intelligent Power Node Manager IT Challenge Over-allocation of power Under-population of rack space High energy costs Capacity planning Detection and correction of hot spots Requirement  Ability to monitor actual power consumption  Control capability that can maintain a power budget to enable dynamic power allocation to each server Control capability that can maintain a power budget to enable increased rack population. Control capability that can maintain a power budget to ensure that a set energy cost can be achieved  Ability to monitor actual power consumption to enable power usage modeling over time and a given planning period  Ability to understand cooling demand from a temperature and airflow perspective  Control capability that reduces platform power consumption to protect a server in a hot-spot  Ability to monitor server inlet temperatures to enable greater rack utilization in areas with adequate cooling. The requirements listed above are those that are addressed by the C600 chipset Management Engine (ME) and Intel® Intelligent Power Node Manager (NM) technology. The ME/NM combination is a power and thermal control capability on the platform, which exposes external interfaces that allow IT (through external management software) to query the ME about platform power capability and consumption, thermal characteristics, and specify policy directives (for example, set a platform power budget). Node Manager (NM) is a platform resident technology that enforces power capping and thermaltriggered power capping policies for the platform. These policies are applied by exploiting subsystem knobs (such as processor P and T states) that can be used to control power consumption. NM enables data center power management by exposing an external interface to management software through which platform policies can be specified. It also implements specific data center power management usage models such as power limiting, and thermal monitoring. The NM feature is implemented by a complementary architecture utilizing the ME, BMC, BIOS, and an ACPI-compliant OS. The ME provides the NM policy engine and power control/limiting functions (referred to as Node Manager or NM) while the BMC provides the external LAN link by which external management software can interact with the feature. The BIOS provides system power information utilized by the NM algorithms and also exports ACPI Source Language (ASL) code used by OS-Directed Power Management (OSPM) for negotiating processor P and T state changes for power limiting. PMBus*-compliant power supplies provide the capability to monitoring input power consumption, which is necessary to support NM. Below are the some of the applications of Intel® Intelligent Power Node Manager technology. 50 Revision 1.1 Intel order number G24881-004