[OmniOS-discuss] [smartos-discuss] Re: Supermicro IPMI based BIOS update

[Paul B. Henson]

> From: Keith Wesolowski [mailto:keith.wesolowski at joyent.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2013 9:01 AM
>
> My perspective on this is that being able to upgrade firmware over the
> LAN interface is an essential manageability feature.

I don't know if I want to call them "higher end", or "brand name", but for
the most part all of my servers from Sun or IBM have had this functionality,
other than occasionally needing to boot an ISO image to update RAID
controller firmware.

> What's even more obnoxious is that it's usually impossible to preserve
> settings across a firmware upgrade, and that there's generally no way to
> export or import settings or set them noninteractively.

Yah, BIOS sucks :(.

> Very much appreciate everyone out there fighting the good fight on this
> stuff.  When you win, we all win!

I think you guys have more clout with at least supermicro than most if not
everybody else on this list ;), maybe you could give your sales rep a good
smack about the ridiculousness of trying to nickel and dime customers for
this IPMI feature :).