Mythical BMC

[idata]

I'm trying to understand the Baseboard Management Controller better, but it seems impossible to find any useful information via Google search, except for a few Wikipedia entries.

Why does Intel keep this kind of information so unavailable?

The few Intel documents I have found I cannot access because the download never completes. The download server seems hosed.

Even searching the Intel site leads to no useful information.

Why is this technology such a secret?

- Eric

[Edward_Z_Intel]

Did you have a chance to read this document?

http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/server/sb/CS-030462.htm?wapkw=(server+management) Server management on Intel® Server Boards and Systems

[idata]

Thanks for the reference - that document indeed looks helpful, but I have not had a chance to read the whole thing yet?

Now another question is - how was I supposed to find that document on my own?

I tried numerous Google searches and nothing led me anywhere close to that.

I tried numerous searches on the Intel web site, and nothing led me anywhere close to that either.

I would be nice if Intel could make such documention more accessible. In the 21st century people make increasing use of Google to find things they are looking for, and come to rely on this as a standard way of doing research. In order for documents like this to be found, Intel needs to make them accessible to Google's robots to find by making sure their web pages are accessible, as well as by making sure the web pages referencing these documents contain suitible meta information for the robots to use for indexing the documents properly. Doing this has two big advantages:

1. Intel customers and partners are able to be more self-sufficient in helping themselves understand issues and sort out problems.
2. Intel receives fewer support calls (which costs money).

Intel is certainly not alone in this problem, many companies do not have good knowledge engineering skills. However, for those companies who do have some skilled knowledge engineering staff, their support documentation is much easier to find via Google or other search engines, and is also much easier to find on their corporate web sites.

Thanks again for the reference :-)

Cheers, Eric

[Edward_Z_Intel]

Good point Eric, can't agree more. Yes we have a lot of technical documents online, and believe me many people has done a lot of works to make them easier to access. But for this one, if you google "intel server bmc", this document turns out to be the second one in the list:

And you're always welcome to ask for help on this community. That's why we're here for.

[idata]

Somehow it did not occur to me to use the word "server" in my search, perhaps because the S5520SC is a workstation board.

I tried "Intel BMC", "S5520SC BMC", "Intel Baseboard Management Controller" and other variations. The last one should have nailed it, but it didn't.

Next time I will try to be more creative in my search terms.

Cheers, Eric

[JasonT_Intel]

Eric, thanks for the feedback. The point you made about the keyword term you used can be added as a term in the actual document page so that when the term is used to search for the document, this will come up. Definitely this can be done & again, thanks for the feedback.

[idata]

Dear Eric:

The actual document BMC document resides on CDI or mymsg.

You must have user access and password to this product area.

The actual document to look for in CDI is: 460588

Intel Server System Integrated Baseboard Management Controller

Core EPS for Intel 5500/5520/5600 Chipset generation.

You can also consult with Intel Customer Support Team, and they should be able to provide to you or through your Field application engineering team, in case you may not have access to the area, or able to create and account,

Sincerely,

Emilio Cañas

Senior Platform Engineer

Intel Architecture Systems Integration

Intel Corporation.