What is Out of Ban Management ?

In computing, out-of-band management (sometimes called lights-out management or LOM) involves the use of a dedicated management channel for device maintenance.

It allows a system administrator to monitor and manage servers and other network equipment by remote control regardless of whether the machine is powered on.

In-band management like Virtual Network Computing (VNC) or Secure Shell (SSH) is based on software that must be installed on the remote system being managed and only works after the operating system has been booted.

Both in-band and out-of-band management is usually done through the network connection, but an out-of-band management card can use a physically separated network connector if preferred. A remote management card usually has an at least partially independent power supply, and can power the main machine on and off through the network.

A complete remote management system allows remote reboot, shutdown, powering on, hardware sensor monitoring (fan speed, power voltages, chassis intrusion, etc), Broadcasts video output to remote terminal and receives input from the remote keyboard and mouse.

·         It also can access local media like DVD drive from the remote machine.

·         If necessary, this allows one to perform remote installation of the operating system.

·         Remote management can be used to adjust BIOS settings that may not be accessible after the operating system has already booted.

·         Settings of hardware RAID or RAM clocking can be also are adjusted as the management card needs no hard drives or main memory to operate.