Management Component Transport Protocol
Management Component Transport Protocol (MCTP) is a protocol designed to support communications between different intelligent hardware components that make up a platform management subsystem, providing monitoring and control functions inside a managed computer system. This protocol is independent of the underlying physical bus properties, as well as the "data-link" layer messaging used on the bus. The MCTP communication model includes a message format, transport description, message exchange patterns, and operational endpoint characteristics.[1][2]
MCTP's underlying buses include SMBus / I2C, PCI Express and USB. Simplified nature of the protocol and reduced encapsulation overheads make MCTP suitable for implementation and processing within system firmwares and integrated baseboard management controllers (BMCs), on a wide range of platforms – including servers, workstations and embedded devices.[1][3]
For example, Intel's network interface controllers (NICs) are including support for MCTP over PCI Express and SMBus since 2012, allowing these NICs to be controlled and monitored at a low level over MCTP. Exposed configuration and monitoring operations include power management, control of Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) offloading, configuration of the out-of-band management traffic (by using RMCP ports filtering, a separate MAC address, or through VLAN tagging), and handling of NIC's interrupts and error conditions.[3][4][5]
See also
- Out-of-band management
- Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI)
- Intel Active Management Technology (AMT)
References
- ^ a b Tom Slaight (2007). "Management Component Transport Protocol (MCTP)" (PDF). Intel. Retrieved 2013-11-09.
- ^ Amar Kapadia (2012-06-18). "MCTP: This protocol is a key tool in server management to maximize ROI". networkworld.com. Retrieved 2013-11-09.
- ^ a b Eliel Louzoun (2013). "MCTP over PCIe Implementation" (PDF). PCI-SIG. Retrieved 2013-11-09.
- ^ "Intel Ethernet Controller I210 Datasheet" (PDF). Intel. 2013. pp. 1, 15, 52, 621–776. Retrieved 2013-11-09.
- ^ "Intel Ethernet Controller X540 Product Brief" (PDF). Intel. 2012. Retrieved 2014-02-26.
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