Blades (boards)
AdvancedTCA blades can be Processors, Switches, AMC carriers, etc. A typical shelf will contain one or more switch blades and several processor blades.
When they are first inserted into the shelf the onboard IPMC is powered from the redundant -48V on the backplane. The IPMC sends an IPMI event message to the Shelf Manager to let it know that it has been installed. The Shelf Manager reads information from the blade and determines if there is enough power available. If there is, the Shelf Manager sends a command to the IPMC to power-up the payload part of the blade. The Shelf Manager also determines what fabric ports are supported by the blade. It then looks at the fabric interconnect information for the backplane to find out what fabric ports are on the other end of the fabric connections. If the fabric ports on both ends of the backplane wires match then it sends an IPMI command to both blades to enable the matching ports.
Once the blade is powered-up and connected to the fabrics the Shelf Manager listens for event messages from the sensors on the blade. If a temperature sensor reports that it is too warm then the Shelf Manager will increase the speed of the fans.
The FRU data in the board contains descriptive information like the manufacturer, model number, serial number, manufacturing date, revision, etc. This information can be read remotely to perform an inventory of the blades in a shelf.
Read more about this topic: Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture
Famous quotes containing the word blades:
“And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)