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I currently have a Dell PE R610 with a DRAC card installed. I was looking at getting a Dell PE C6100 and the description says it has IPMI with dedicated NIC. I have my server in a co-location about 1.5 hours away, so the DRAC has saved me a trip many times. Will the IPMI work like the DRAC?

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DRAC is the card. The generic name is BMC (baseboard management controller). IPMI is a set of standards that allows interrogating and controlling some parts of the server hardware and exposing them via a serial or Ethernet+IP interface.

DRAC, besides IPMI, has also a web server and a ssh server. To have remote access on the server console and to mount virtual drives you will need a commercial license that enables this. Otherwise you will have only:

  • web interface to monitor hardware and start/stop/restart server
  • IPMI to do basically the same + serial over LAN (SOL). SOL has access to BIOS too.

So if it is ok for you with a serial connection, then you can live with IPMI only.

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  • This is inaccurate. IPMI on the C6100 provides a web based management interface plus remote console access using a java applet, as well as options for mounting virtual media (e.g. OS installation ISOs). It is not just limited to SOL.
    – Gene
    Aug 21, 2015 at 20:03
  • Yes, all I ever need to do is maybe restart the server, at times, during a reboot (after windows updates) it the server will get "hung" on shutting down, and it's been nice to just log in to the DRAC and force a restart. So the interface will be similar to what the DRAC looks like? Aug 21, 2015 at 20:04
  • Depends on the DRAC type. See: blog.mwpreston.net/2014/07/24/… With Basic iDRAC you will need to use ipmitool or something similar. For the rest you have a web interface. Aug 21, 2015 at 20:27
  • For all operating system you can enable a serial console that can be available via IPMI SOL. This includes Windows Server, Linux, *BSD. Aug 21, 2015 at 20:29
  • @MirceaVutcovici, the C6100 doesn't have DRAC nor iDRAC. It has an IPMI 2.0 BMC. See this: dell.com/downloads/global/products/pedge/en/… -- And this: itpro.co.uk/gallery/reviews/637195/dell-poweredge-c6100-review/…
    – Gene
    Aug 21, 2015 at 22:39
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DRAC is based on IPMI, so it will work approximately the same, but with fewer features. You will be able to get a remote console and change BIOS and firmware settings, update firmware, have alerts emailed to you, etc. All the most critical and basic stuff will work.

In particular, the C6100 has what appears to be a very stripped down DRAC, which is also not branded as a DRAC. Nevertheless it will be sufficient for all of the necessary server management tasks, as described above.

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