The OpenPOWER Foundation has announced a new project, LibreBMC, aimed at creating a fully open Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) for servers used in data centers. LibreBMC will evolve as a collaborative project that has already seen participation from companies such as Google, IBM, Antmicro, Yadro, and Raptor Computing Systems.
BMC is a specialized controller installed in servers, equipped with its own CPU, memory, storage, and sensor polling interfaces, providing a low-level interface for monitoring and managing server hardware. With BMC, the state of the sensors can be monitored regardless of the operating system in use. server It allows for monitoring sensor status, managing power, firmware, and disks, organizing remote network booting, and providing remote access console functionality, among other features.
LibreBMC is developed in accordance with the principles of Open Hardware. In addition to open schematics, project documentation, and specifications, the project plans to utilize open tools for development. In particular, the LiteX framework is used for creating SoC electronic schematics, while SymbiFlow is employed for developing FPGA-based solutions. The resulting board will comply with the DC-SCM specification, defining the requirements for management modules used in server hardware developed by the Open Compute project.
LibreBMC will be equipped with a processor based on the open POWER architecture. The firmware will utilize the OpenBMC stack, initially developed by Facebook and transformed into a collaborative project under the auspices of the Linux Foundation. The use of OpenBMC in conjunction with the LibreBMC project will enable the creation of a fully open product that combines open hardware and open firmware. Currently, LibreBMC is in the prototype design stage, implemented using Lattice ECP5 and Xilinx Artix-7 FPGAs.
Source: opennet.ru
