Patent ID: 7694159

Claim:
A method for remotely controlling power consumption of at least one server, comprising: providing remote control to an administrator over a power state of at least one server; building an instruction command and encoding it into a suitable format for transport over a data network from an administration terminal to the at least one server; providing a lights-out (ILO) controller integrated in a host processor of the server for generating system management interrupt (SMI) from the instruction command and driving the host processor to react and go into a different power consumption state, wherein the ILO has separate operating components, including power source, communications channel, RAM, ROM, and peripherals, independent from similar operating components of the server; accepting an SMI command remotely by the ILO specifying a change in power state for controlling remote power management of the server during power up, before the operating system loads, while the operating system is running and when there is an operating system failure; interpreting the command and executing the command by the at least one server without powering down the at least one server; sending XML commands to the ILO via a transmission control protocol communications interface; and broadcasting a new power state based on the XML commands to plural ILO's associated with other servers connected to the server.