Open Source Firmware Conference 2023

Provision Open Source Firmware system at scale
2023-10-11 , Main Track

We will introduce concept to automatically provision OpenSource Firmware (starting from the BMC side) at scale within datacenter. That is a co-presentation between HPE and Scaleway a french cloud service provider


OpenBMC is a fast-rising Open Source project aiming to replace proprietary BMC firmware by a linux embedded software image, with the intent to be multi-platform vendors compatible. It is based on proven technologies, including D-BUS as inter process communication mechanism and library, and systemd to handle service management. The project is compliant with industry standard communication API like IPMI and Redfish. These technologies are focused on management tasks and lack critical features during system provisioning as to safely authenticate, and provision unknown new systems in a datacenter. We will introduce during this talk options which have been tested at Scaleway and could be integrated within OpenBMC running on HPE ProLiant machines or any other vendors. The process is broken in 3 major steps which will include system discovery, stepping logging and testing before entering production. Based on feedbacks we will specify the process for community review before submitting patches.

I am thrilled by computers. I spent a lot of time designing them at architectural and hardware level, and participated to crazy projects, including building up the biggest european super computer in the late 90's. I love to share my knowledge and enable people to design better computers. I am particularly focused on open technologies currently, which includes design tools like FreeCAD, KiCAD, and open source firmware projects like linuxboot and OpenBMC. I used to work for big companies, created a french based startup that I successfully sold to an american company in 2018. I am now part of HPE mainly focused on open platforms. What does it mean will be known in a couple of months / quarters and years.

PhD/Engineer in Computer Sciences, currently working as Engineering Manager at Scaleway, a french Cloud Service Provider.
Passionate about design and development of IT systems with a particular interest in embedded systems, firmware and hardware management.