API Guide

Overview
The Redfish Scalable Platforms Management API is a standard defined by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF). Redfish is a
next-generation systems management interface standard, which enables scalable, secure, and open server management. It is a new
interface that uses RESTful interface semantics to access data that is defined in model format to perform out-of-band systems
management. It is suitable for a wide range of servers ranging from stand-alone servers to rack mount and bladed environments and for
large scale cloud environments.
Dell PowerEdge servers offer a comprehensive range of embedded systems management functions enabled by the Integrated Dell
Remote Access Controler (iDRAC) with Lifecycle Controller. These functions are designed by adhering industry standard application
programming interfaces (APIs) including Redfish.
iDRAC with Lifecycle Controller technology is part of a larger data center solution that helps keep business critical applications and
workloads available always. The technology allows administrators to deploy, monitor, manage, configure, update, troubleshoot, and
remediate Dell servers from any location, and without the use of agents. It accomplishes this regardless of an operating system or a
Hypervisor presence or state.
This document provides a brief overview on Redfish and information on various aspects of Redfish protocol, supported schema, and
Redfish Eventing implemented in iDRAC. It also provides guidelines for using the Dell Redfish APIs.
What is new in this release
This release of Redfish API supports the following features:
• Redfish Specification v1.0.2 (errata).
• Server Configuration Profile (SCP) with JSON and HTTP/HTTPS.
• Redfish 2016.1 including BIOS, Secure Boot configuration, UEFI certificates management, and iDRAC configuration.
• iDRAC Attribute Registry, Firmware inventory, BIOS Boot sequence, UEFI Boot sequence, hard-drive boot sequence, iDRAC reset to
defaults, and job management.
• Redfish 2016.2 for firmware update.
• Eventing using CA certificates.
• Enhanced RESTful server configuration with access via HTTP, HTTPS, streamed local file, and SCP in JSON format.
Benefits
Redfish is a new global standard for open server management. It has the capabilities to support single servers, converged infrastructure,
and hyper—scale architecture. It provides the following benefits over existing server management methods:
• Increased simplicity and usability
• High data security
• Programmable interface that can be easily scripted
• Widely-used standard
Key technologies
Redfish uses web and cloud-based technologies that enable communications with servers using common programming and scripting
languages such as Python, JAVA, and C. The key technologies are as follows:
• REpresentational State Transfer (REST) interface — REST is a web based API, which provides a way to interact with a system over a
normal web connection. It supports both HTTPS and HTTP.
• Java Script Notation (JSON) — JSON represents data in such a way that it is much easier to read than XML. It also provides the
formatting that is required for scripting languages to interface with the data.
• OData — It is important to standardize the data format when implementing a common interface across multiple vendors. OData
provides the required framework to ensure that the data structure remains interchangeable between server vendors.
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