A method of managing rack-mounted computing devices in a data center with a distributed peer-to-peer management system, the method comprising: determining roles of data-center management computing devices in a distributed peer-to-peer data-center management system; receiving, via an out-of-band network, a data-center management command at a given data-center management computing device; distributing, based on at least some of the roles, via the out-of-band network, the data-center management command from the given data-center management computing device to a first plurality of other data-center management computing devices; for each of the first plurality of other data-center management computing devices, distributing, based on at least some of the roles, via the out-of-band network, the data-center management command to a respective second plurality of other data-center management computing devices; determining, with at least one of the first plurality of other data-center management computing devices, that the given data-center management computing device has failed; electing, with at least one of the first plurality of other data-center management computing devices, one of the first plurality of other data-center management computing devices to serve as a replacement to the given data-center management computing device in at least some roles filled by the given data-center management computing device; and distributing a result of the election to each the first plurality of other data-center management computing devices, wherein: the given data-center management computing device, the first plurality of other data-center management computing devices, and the respective second pluralities of other data-center management computing devices are each configured to manage a respective plurality of rack-mounted computing devices; each of the pluralities of respective rack-mounted computing devices executes an inband application that communicates on an in-band network different from the out-of-band network; and the data-center management command is a command to update or otherwise configure a microkernel, a virtual machine, a container, an operating system, or an application executing on one or more data-center management computing devices. determining roles of data-center management computing devices in a distributed peer-to-peer data-center management system; receiving, via an out-of-band network, a data-center management command at a given data-center management computing device; distributing, based on at least some of the roles, via the out-of-band network, the data-center management command from the given data-center management computing device to a first plurality of other data-center management computing devices; for each of the first plurality of other data-center management computing devices, distributing, based on at least some of the roles, via the out-of-band network, the data-center management command to a respective second plurality of other data-center management computing devices; determining, with at least one of the first plurality of other data-center management computing devices, that the given data-center management computing device has failed; electing, with at least one of the first plurality of other data-center management computing devices, one of the first plurality of other data-center management computing devices to serve as a replacement to the given data-center management computing device in at least some roles filled by the given data-center management computing device; and distributing a result of the election to each the first plurality of other data-center management computing devices, wherein: the given data-center management computing device, the first plurality of other data-center management computing devices, and the respective second pluralities of other data-center management computing devices are each configured to manage a respective plurality of rack-mounted computing devices; each of the pluralities of respective rack-mounted computing devices executes an inband application that communicates on an in-band network different from the out-of-band network; and the data-center management command is a command to update or otherwise configure a microkernel, a virtual machine, a container, an operating system, or an application executing on one or more data-center management computing devices. the given data-center management computing device, the first plurality of other data-center management computing devices, and the respective second pluralities of other data-center management computing devices are each configured to manage a respective plurality of rack-mounted computing devices; each of the pluralities of respective rack-mounted computing devices executes an inband application that communicates on an in-band network different from the out-of-band network; and the data-center management command is a command to update or otherwise configure a microkernel, a virtual machine, a container, an operating system, or an application executing on one or more data-center management computing devices.