How does IPMI work?

the IPMI card is an addon card that allows independant control of the machine at hardware level. I have an AOC-SIMLP-3+ on my X7DBE+. You use software that comes with the card to view the status of the server. It shows voltages, temps, fan rpm, KVM-over-LAN, and virtual media (you can load a virtual cd). The card has its own cpu and memory that run independant of the server. This card can turn on, off, or reset a server. Even if the OS is locked up on the server. Only stipulation is that there must be power to the server, obviously. Its been very handy. The kvm shows you everything that would be displayed on the console if you had a monitor attached, and your keyboard and mouse function the same way. Really handy for changing BIOS settings and configuring hardware raid controllers remotely. Definetly a worthwhile investment. I use my server as an ESX host, so this has definetly been handy for remote upgrades.

IPMI (Intelligent Platform Management Interface) is a hardware-level interface specification that defines a common, abstract message-based interface to platform monitoring and control functions. Providing peace of mind to customers, SIM (Supermicro Intelligent Management) module implements IPMI 2.0 technology to provide remote access, monitoring and administration for Supermicro server platforms. With SIM, server administrators can view a server's hardware status remotely, receive an alarm automatically if a failure occurs, and power cycle a system that is non-responsive.