Remote Management – vPro, IPMI, others?

[nukeman]

Just starting research for a new build.  Overall goals are some sort of bare metal hypervisor (esxi or xen) with unraid as a guest.  This box will also host SAB/Sickbeard/Couchpotato as well as various other linux and windows vm’s.  One feature that appeals to me is remote management at the BIOS level.  So far I’ve read about vPro and IPMI.  Are there other similar technologies out there?

 

For vPro, looks like if I want to go with Haswell (LGA 1150) I’ll need:

• Q87 chipset
  
• At least an i5 processor - $200ish, would try to find a T model for lower TDP
  
• RealVNC plus license - $99 (don't know if this is required)
  

 

Supermicro seems to be the main motherboard vendor with IPMI. Those motherboards are more expensive but the extra cost may be justified if I don’t need the RealVNC plus license.  X9 series are LGA 1155 and X10 are LGA 1150, right?  Also, I need to find one with “F” to get IPMI, right?

 

I haven’t even begun to look at esxi/xen hardware compatibility.

 

Anyone have any opinions one which route to persue?

 

[Helmonder]

My build has ipmi and esxi with passthru on the drive controllers.... IPMI is really cool... I can go on holiday and reset the system when needed even when everything has crashed :-)

 

You also get an easy console when your system is not near.. With vmware that is actually a little less usefull since you also get the vm's consoled over  www if you want..