I have Dell R210 1U server (W2008R2 Enterprise).The box is currently in another country on colocation. I am thinking of moving it to another colocation.
I was told that if my box supports IPMI I could power-cycle it remotely in new environment. I have no idea how IPMI works..
Do I need to set something in the Bios? in Windows? Do the colo provider connect something physical to the box to make it work (a cable?).
How would you go about it if the box is only accessible through RDP? And you wanted to ensure IPMI will work and also to ask all the right question before move (because their 'remote hands' are very expensive).
Best Answer
On a Dell, it's the iDRAC. Read the manual for the hardware you've bought, focusing on the features and requirements for the iDRAC on the model you own. Some have their own NIC that needs to be cabled, some will share a system NIC. Either way, you'll need to get an IP address on that card, which will be a manual process, unless they give you DHCP (unlikely in someone else's colo, but maybe they'll work with you on this.)
Then, once the iDRAC is running, you can HTTPS or SSH into it and power-cycle your server on your own, as often as you need to.