Vitesse Introduces Highly-Integrated Server Baseboard Management Controller

Vitesse Semiconductor Corp. unveiled what it claims is the world’s most highly-integrated server baseboard management controller (BMC) for server management. Before the VSC452, server manufacturers had to rely on separate graphics processors and Super I/O integrated circuits (ICs) along with their BMC to implement robust remote management. These multiple IC resources support many other processes, making system integration and motherboard layout challenging. Now, all the resources required to implement advanced server remote management are incorporated into a single IC. This new level of integration is said to reduce manufacturers time-to-market and overall BOM cost by more than 50% in the highly-competitive server market. When combined with application software from Vitesse’s partners, American Megatrends, Inc. (AMI) and Avocent, the VSC452 is claimed to provide a complete, easy-to-implement, remote server management solution.

"Vitesse has been a market leader in enclosure management devices for the storage market for over a decade," said Tim Hornback, Vice President and General Manager of Vitesse’s Storage Products Division. "The VSC452 extends that leadership by providing complete server baseboard management."

The VSC452 combines functionality that previously had been built into separate devices: sensor and power monitoring and control in an enclosure management processor, VGA processing in a graphics add-in card, 16550 UARTs and real-time clock in a Super I/O chip, Ethernet and encryption in a network interface card. Using these disparate subsystems to implement IPMI 2.0, remote keyboard, video, and mouse (KVM) over IP, Serial Over LAN (SOL), virtual media, and other server management features led to redundant hardware, such as memory, and software integration challenges.

Vitesse also included the digital video compression engines from AMI and Avocent in the VSC452 to provide a tightly integrated, high performance KVM solution. By combining all of this hardware into a single IC and coupling it with what is claimed to be feature-rich and industry-proven software from AMI and Avocent, the VSC452 is said to provide a more straightforward management implementation for server manufacturers.

The VSC452 is sampling now and expected to be in full production in late 2007.