Maximizing Industrial Application Efficiency with DFI’s Out-Of-Band Technology

Written by BRANDON LEWIS | Oct 21, 2024 6:42:26 AM

In today’s interconnected world, where IT and OT systems are central to business operations, downtime can result in significant operational disruptions and financial losses. Ensuring the continuous operation of these systems is crucial, and network administrators play a key role in managing and monitoring devices across distributed locations. Out-of-Band (OOB) management has emerged as an essential tool for enhancing the reliability, security, and efficiency of networked systems, enabling administrators to remotely manage devices, prevent costly downtime, and maintain smooth, uninterrupted operations.

This article gives an overview of the OOB management, comparing market solutions and exploring the industrial-oriented functions and benefits of DFI’s OOB technology. It will also go through DFI’s OOB product lineup and demonstrate the use case of their embedded computers with OOB capabilities.

The Out-Of-Band (OOB) Management

What is Out-Of-Band (OOB) Management?

Out-of-Band (OOB) management refers to the ability to manage and monitor devices independently of the operating system. This approach uses a dedicated, separate channel for management traffic, ensuring that administrators can monitor, control, and troubleshoot systems even when they are powered off, crashed or unresponsive.

Why is Out-Of-Band (OOB) remote management important?

In the era of IoT, where everything is interconnected, ensuring device uptime is crucial as any disruption can have severe consequences. The recent Microsoft cloud service outage highlights the pressing need for Out-Of-Band (OOB) management in technology management. For several hours, critical operations across various sectors were disrupted, emphasizing the importance of having a fail-safe mechanism to access and control systems independently of the primary network. The OOB management provides this capability, enabling IT administrators to remotely troubleshoot, reboot, and configure systems, thus minimizing the impact of outages and ensuring operational continuity.

Benefits of Out-Of-Band (OOB) Management

Enhanced Reliability: OOB management greatly enhances the reliability of industrial applications by providing a secure, independent access channel. This ensures that, even if the primary network encounters issues, administrators can still remotely access and troubleshoot systems, maintaining operational continuity.
Minimized Downtime: In environments requiring 24/7 operation, OOB management helps minimize downtime by enabling swift remote adjustments such as reboots and firmwarupdates. This capability eliminates the need for on-site technician visits, ensuring that critical systems remain operational without interruption.
Cost Savings: By remote access and control, OOB management reduces the need for on-site IT support. This is particularly beneficial for industrial devices located in remote or hazardous environments, where sending technicians could be costly and time-consuming.
Improved Security: OOB management operates on a separate channel from the primary network, providing a secure pathway to manage and monitor industrial PCs. This separation reduces the risk of unauthorized access or cyberattacks impacting the entire system, ensuring that critical applications remain protected.
Streamlined Maintenance: Routine tasks like firmware updates, reboots, and configuration changes can be performed remotely through OOB management, simplifying maintenance processes and reducing the risk of human error.

Market-leading Out-Of-Band (OOB) Solutions

The market currently offers a wide array of Out-Of-Band (OOB) solutions, each tailored to meet specific requirements across diverse environments, ranging from enterprise servers and PCs to industrial and embedded systems. Below is a comparison table highlighting the key features of the leading OOB solutions available today:

DFI cBMC Out-Of-Band (OOB) Solutions Tailored for Industrial PC Applications

Among these market-leading OOB solutions, DFI cBMC OOB solutions are specifically designed to meet the needs of industrial PC applications, offering both robust functionality and cost-effectiveness. Their solutions support standard MQTT protocols, enabling AIoT developers to manage edge devices with custom M2M communication by using their in-house APIs and SDKs. Remarkably, DFI cBMC OOB solutions deliver up to 70% of the functionality typically found in server-grade BMCs and are compatible with both DFI’s systems and motherboards, making them versatile for a wide range of industrial uses.

Here are the functions supported by DFI cBMC OOB solutions:

Open SSH Login: Enables users to remotely access and log in to devices to execute commands securely.

Remote Power Control

∗ Power On/Off & Reset: Users can remotely power on, force shutdown, or reset devices after logging in.
∗ Remote Web On/Off Control: In addition to power control, users can access devices via a web interface (HTTP server) to perform power on/off functions.

Remote Hardware Monitor Log: Allows users to remotely monitor critical device data, including voltage, temperature, fan speed, and CPU temperature, ensuring the system’s health and stability.
Remote Recovery (Factory Mode): Users can restore a device by powering it on and pressing the recovery key.
Remote Recovery OS Image: Users can access the operating system recovery menu to perform tasks such as backing up data, restoring a backup or cloning a hard drive. (*This feature is currently under development and will be available soon.)
Remote BIOS Settings

∗ Remote BIOS Setup: BIOS and UEFI firmware settings can be accessed and configured remotely.
∗ Remote BIOS Update: BIOS updates can be performed remotely via the built-in Virtual SPI Flash Programmer and USB Storage.

In-Band Windows Remote Desktop: When a Windows-based device is operating normally, users can remotely access the desktop environment for management and troubleshooting.

DFI cBMC OOB solutions provide a comprehensive set of remote management tools that enhance the control, reliability, and functionality of industrial systems, ensuring optimal performance and uptime across various environments.

DFI’s cBMC Out-Of-Band (OOB) Product Lineup

DFI offers four OOB hardware models—M2A-OOB, EXT-OOB, RM101-OOB, and Onboard OOB—each catering to specific industrial application needs, ensuring seamless integration and optimal performance across diverse industrial environments.

M2A-OOB

The M2A-OOB is an M.2 KEY A 2242 cBMC module designed for enabling OOB functionality on DFI’s ATX motherboards and embedded systems. The M2A-OOB module is lightweight, compact, and energy-efficient, allowing it to integrate seamlessly into these hardware setups without requiring additional space or consuming excessive power.

Features:

ARM926EJ-S microprocessor embedded
Low power consumption of less than 0.5 W
Built-in Out-Of-Band (OOB) remote management including:

∗  Remote recovery
∗  Remote power on/ off/ reset
∗  Remote web power on/off control
∗  Remote hardware monitor
∗  Remote BIOS setup
∗  Remote BIOS update via Virtual SPI Flash Programmer and USB Storage
∗  BIOS protection
∗  In-Band Windows Remote Desktop
∗  Remote OS recovery (optional)

Currently the M2A-OOB supports DFI’s ATX motherboard RPS630-R680E, PICMG 1.3 CPU card RPSPIC, fanless embedded system EC600-RPS, and AI inference system X6-MTH-ORN.

EXT-OOB

The EXT-OOB is an expansion card designed to extend the capabilities of the M2A-OOB module for use with industrial motherboards. It features an M.2 A Key slot, a LAN port, a DFI proprietary Combo DB9 port, and a USB Type-C port to enable DFI cBMC OOB functions. When paired with industrial motherboards equipped with SPI/I2C interfaces, such as the RPS103, RPS183, and RPS310-R680E, the EXT-OOB also supports advanced features like remote hardware monitoring, remote BIOS updates via Virtual SPI Flash Programmer, and BIOS protection.

Features:

Low power consumption
Built-in Out-Of-Band (OOB) remote management including:

∗  Remote recovery
∗  Remote power on/ off/ reset
∗  Remote web power on/off control
∗  Remote hardware monitor (boards with SPI/I2C interfaces only)
∗  Remote BIOS setup
∗  Remote BIOS update via Virtual SPI Flash Programmer (boards with SPI/I2C interfaces only) and USB Storage
∗  BIOS protection (boards with SPI/I2C interfaces only)
∗  In-Band Windows Remote Desktop
∗  Remote OS recovery (optional)

RM101-OOB

The RM101-OOB is a compact, standalone version of the EXT-OOB card designed for simple and fast deployment. Its plug-and-play design allows users to enable most OOB functions with minimal effort by simply connecting the LAN, USB and DB9 ports to an industrial computer. This eliminates the need for additional adjustments or configurations to enable out-of-band management efficiently.

Features:

Low power consumption
Plug-and-play design for fast deployment
Built-in Out-Of-Band (OOB) remote management including:

∗  Remote recovery
∗  Remote power on/ off/ reset
∗  Remote web power on/off control
∗  Remote BIOS setup
∗  Remote BIOS update via USB Storage
∗  In-Band Windows Remote Desktop
∗  Remote OS recovery (optional)

The RM101-OOB solution currently supports DFI 4” SBCs, fanless embedded systems like EC700 series, EC70A series and EC70B series.

Onboard OOB

The Onboard OOB solution integrates the OOB functionality directly into the motherboard, streamlining the hardware design to maintain a compact size while ensuring robust anti-shock and anti-vibration capabilities. By DFI's proprietary Combo DB9 connector, LAN port, and uSD, the system efficiently handles remote power control, OS recovery, BIOS setup and updates, and additional remote management tasks.

Features:

Low power consumption
Built-in Out-Of-Band (OOB) remote management including:

The Onboard OOB solution is currently available on DFI 4” SBC ADN253, fanless embedded system EC700-ADN, and fanless touch panel PC KIT070P-ADN, KIT101P-ADN, and KIT121P-ADN.

Use Case - DFI EC700-ADN Embedded PC with the OOB solution for Vending Machine

Learn more: https://www.dfi.com/solution/successstory/105

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