IPMI (Intelligent Platform Management Interface) is a pseudo standard for managing, accessing, and configuring servers. Companies like SuperMicro, Quanta, Celestica, are petty good about sticking to those standards, even HP and Dell allow limited use of them. One might also see/hear the term BMC, which is really just the hardware that runs the IPMI interface.
When dealing with older hardware it can be a real PITA to administer machines. Things like getting the remote KVM/Console to work with modern day browsers can be a real headache. Each manufacture, and often each model have their own idiosyncrasies.
IPMItools, is a software package one can download, install, and issue commands a remote machine. Think of it like 'PowerCLI" for the BMC. Now enter SuperMicro's IPMIView. It takes IPMItools one step further. It is a GUI that allow one to add in many systems into a control panel, flip through those systems, and do remote access, management, and configuration. IMHO the biggest feature is having an easy way to get at the remoteKVM/console of the machine. No more making SSL and security exceptions for each machine one administers. Hence the name, this tool is made for SuperMicro systems, however since it operates with industry standards it also functions with many other manufactures.
https://www.supermicro.com/en/solutions/management-software/ipmi-utilities
IPMItools does require Java to run, and it make require some initial security settings, but it beats making changes for every single machine. Each system is a bit different so somethings work, some don't....IE hardware monitoring.
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