NC-SI
NC-SI
Electrical interface and protocol
NC-SI, abbreviated from network controller sideband interface, is an electrical interface and protocol defined by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF). The NC-SI enables the connection of a baseboard management controller (BMC) to one or more network interface controllers (NICs) in a server computer system for the purpose of enabling out-of-band system management. This allows the BMC to use the network connections of the NIC ports for the management traffic, in addition to the regular host traffic.[1][2]
The NC-SI defines a control communication protocol between the BMC and NICs. The NC-SI is supported over several transports and physical interfaces.