MMCS PANEL: Platform Management - Coordination or Not?

Moderator: Milan Milenkovic, Intel


Emerging many-core platforms add new management requirements --
such as core allocation to applications, virtual machines, memory 
and interconnect configuration -- to the already complex set that
includes partitioning, provisioning, power management, hardware
and software health and performance monitoring.  

 

Key issues with managing future platforms include the following:

  - `Where' does management reside: embedded deeply into specific hardware
     subsystems, in separable programmable controllers, in software
     appliances deployed to platforms, at centralized locations (e.g., at
     blade server level), or all of the above?

  -  How autonomously do individual management subsystems operate and/or
     to what extent should they expose their management information,
     decisions, and actions?

  -  To what extent can/should different management subsystems be
     integrated?

  -  How does platform management fit into the data-center or group
     management hierarchy of management agents and in-band (OS agents) or
     out-of-band (management agents in firmware talking outbound via LAN)
     management controversy? Stated differently, who "speaks for the
     platform" in a partitioned/virtualized environment of today -
     hardware/firmware, virtual-machine monitor, partitioning OS or
     something else?


The purpose of this panel is to discuss the questions above from
different points of view: the hardware vendor seeking to enrich or improve
platform capabilities, the system developer seeking to develop suitable
management policies for operating systems (e.g., power preserving operation), and
the application or subsystem developer aiming to construct application-level
or subsystem-level management strategies that optimize certain application 
behaviors.