Patent ID: 7483974

Claim:
A method, comprising: activating a management mode of operation of a processor on a processing blade, the processing blade included within a blade server; using a software proxy layer in a firmware unit to emulate a baseboard management controller and to interact with a management module of the blade server during the management mode of operation to manage operation of the processing blade, wherein the firmware unit having the software proxy layer is included in the processing blade; and deactivating the management mode of operation of the processor using a management mode interrupt handler, wherein the management mode of operation of the processor is transparent to a pre-boot runtime of the processor and to an operating system runtime of the processor, and wherein: activating the management mode of operation comprises saving state information of the processor and saving an execution location of the processor prior to entering the management mode of operation, and deactivating the management mode of operation comprises exiting the management mode of operation, loading the saved state information into the processor, and returning the processor to the saved execution location.