Penguin Computing Relion 1900e, Technical Manual

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Relion 1900e/2900e Manual
81 Revision 1.3
8. Intel® Intelligent Power Node Manager (NM) Support
Overview
Power management deals with requirements to manage processor power consumption and manage power
at the platform level to meet critical business needs. Node Manager (NM) is a platform resident technology
that enforces power capping and thermal-triggered 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.
The NM architecture applicable to this generation of servers is defined by the NPTM Architecture
Specification v2.0. NPTM is an evolving technology that is expected to continue to add new capabilities that
will be defined in subsequent versions of the specification. The ME NM implements the NPTM policy engine
and control/monitoring algorithms defined in the Node Power and Thermal Manager (NPTM) specification.
8.1 Hardware Requirements
NM is supported only on platforms that have the NM FW functionality loaded and enabled on the
Management Engine (ME) in the SSB and that have a BMC present to support the external LAN interface to
the ME. NM power limiting features requires a means for the ME to monitor input power consumption for the
platform. This capability is generally provided by means of PMBus*-compliant power supplies although an
alternative model using a simpler SMBus* power monitoring device is possible (there is potential loss in
accuracy and responsiveness using non-PMBus* devices). The NM SmaRT/CLST feature does specifically
require PMBus*-compliant power supplies as well as additional hardware on the baseboard.
8.2 Features
NM provides feature support for policy management, monitoring and querying, alerts and notifications, and
an external interface protocol. The policy management features implement specific IT goals that can be
specified as policy directives for NM. Monitoring and querying features enable tracking of power
consumption. Alerts and notifications provide the foundation for automation of power management in the
data center management stack. The external interface specifies the protocols that must be supported in this
version of NM.
8.3 ME System Management Bus (SMBus*) interface

The ME uses the SMLink0 on the SSB in multi-master mode as a dedicated bus for communication
with the BMC using the IPMB protocol. The BMC FW considers this a secondary IPMB bus and runs at
400 kHz.