American Megatrends Announces New, Free Version of AMIDuOS Android Environment for Windows

September 10, 2018:

NORCROSS, GEORGIA: American Megatrends Inc. (AMI), a global leader in BIOS and UEFI firmware, server and remote management tools, data storage products and unique solutions based on the Linux® and Android™ operating systems, is pleased to announce a new, free-to-download version of AMIDuOS®, our popular Android Environment for Microsoft® Windows® platforms, starting from today.

After many years of offering multiple versions of our award-winning AMIDuOS software for a modest licensing fee, AMI ultimately decided to suspend sales of the product earlier this year, due primarily to compatibility issues with newer versions of Microsoft Windows. Soon after, a surprising outpouring of goodwill for the discontinued product and requests to revive it poured in to AMI.

Now, in response to popular demand, AMI has decided to bring AMIDuOS "back to life" – by re-issuing the software for all users to download and use it free of charge. This free version of AMIDuOS is consistent with the final releases of the paid version of the product and will be available for download from today.

Interested users can now download AMIDuOS, as well as get more information on known issues and system requirements, from our AMI.com website at: https://ami.com/getamiduos.

Users should also take note that this software is offered “as-is” with limited technical support available and may not be fully supported on all Windows platforms. Please note as well that no further product updates or bug fixes will be forthcoming for this product from AMI.

In parallel with this announcement, American Megatrends will be suspending online ticket technical support through our amiduos.com website, effective immediately. However, our Knowledgebase of archived technical support articles and user comments will still be available on that website indefinitely.

Once again, we would like to thank our community of users for their continued support of AMIDuOS, and we hope that everyone continues to enjoy this popular AMI software product.

Windows® is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Android™ is a trademark of Google LLC.

American Megatrends Announces New Module for Aptio V UEFI Firmware Compatible with NIST SP 800 - 88 / DoD 5220.22-M Data Sanitation Guidelines

August 17, 2018:

NORCROSS, GEORGIA - American Megatrends, Inc. (AMI), a global leader in BIOS, remote management tools, network data storage products and unique solutions based on the Linux® and Android™ operating systems, is pleased to announce a new module for its flagship Aptio® V UEFI Firmware that is compatible with the NIST SP 800-88 “Guidelines for Media Sanitization” and DoD 5220.22-M “Data Clearing and Sanitization.”

With growing concerns over data theft, proper media sanitization is a necessity for organizations to protect sensitive data from leaking to unauthorized parties. The NIST 800-88 and DOD 5220.22-M guidelines offer thorough guidelines towards safe data disposal to assist organizations with this critical task.

In its Special Publication 800-88, NIST outlines fundamental standards and procedures for information disposal and media sanitization. In compliance with this publication, this new Aptio V module from AMI will utilize Secure Erase functionality built into media drives as well as follow procedures outlined in the NIST special publications.

For more information about the NIST 800-88 and DoD 5220.22-M guidelines and how they are incorporated in this new module in Aptio V UEFI Firmware from American Megatrends, please contact your AMI representative at 1-800-828-9264 or visit ami.com.

MegaRAC Composer Pod Management Software from American Megatrends Featured at Flash Memory Summit, August 6 - 9, 2018

August 3, 2018:

NORCROSS, GEORGIA / SANTA CLARA, CA: -American Megatrends Inc. (AMI), a global leader in BIOS and UEFI firmware, server and remote management tools, data storage products and unique solutions based on the Linux® and Android™ operating systems, is pleased to announce that its MegaRAC® Composer™ Pod Management Software will be featured at the Flash Memory Summit 2018 in San Jose, CA from August 6 - 9, 2018.

Attendees to Flash Memory Summit attendees have access to the latest technology updates, forecasts, and roadmaps for non-volatile memory (NVM), with a featured focus on NVMe, NVMe-oF, persistent memory, advanced memory technologies, and key open source software topics.

During Flash Memory Summit, MegaRAC Composer Pod Management Software from American Megatrends will be featured as part of a multi-vendor FPGA and NVMe pooling demonstration staged and hosted by Intel® Corporation. Notably, the demo will be managed at the event in Santa Clara, while the physical hardware and resources are physically present at an Intel facility in Oregon.

Attendees will experience how MegaRAC Composer can browse physical resources at the rack, chassis and system level, all through an intuitive web-based user interface. This interoperability demo will highlight key capabilities and technologies of an integrated solution based on Intel® Rack Scale Design (RSD) technology, including:

• Pooling of disaggregated, PCIe-attached NVMe and FGPA resources
• Intel RSD discovery of available pooled resources including compute, storage, and accelerators
• Intel RSD modification of resources attached to a composed server
• Management of the discovery and assembly process through AMI MegaRAC Composer
• Accelerated Levyx financial analysis workload demo using Intel® NVMe SSDs and scaling across 3 FPGAs from Intel

MegaRAC Composer Pod Management Software is fully compatible with Intel Rack Scale Design and compliant with DMTF Redfish™ standards, providing demand-driven dynamic scaling to optimize datacenter resource utilization. It also allows for the composition of physical resources based on templates, which can then be stored in the software and reused as a time-saving feature. In addition, MegaRAC Composer gives users the ability to power on, force off, and gracefully shutdown composed nodes.

Subramonian Shankar, President, CEO and Founder of American Megatrends, commented on the inclusion of MegaRAC Composer in the Intel demo at Flash Memory Summit by saying: "AMI is very grateful to Intel and the other interoperability demonstration partners for the opportunity to present our MegaRAC Composer Pod Management software at Flash Memory Summit. AMI maintains a strong commitment to developing world-class management technologies for rack and scalable computing systems, drawing on our decades of providing remote management solutions to top-tier OEMs and ODMs around the globe, and Flash Memory Summit is the perfect stage for showcasing our expertise to the industry at large."

AMI encourages attendees of Flash Memory Summit to visit the Intel display and see MegaRAC Composer in action as part of the Intel interoperability demo. To learn more about MegaRAC Composer and how it provides intuitive, efficient and powerful Rack Scale Design-compliant management for modular rack systems, please visit https://ami.com/products/remote-management/megarac-composer/ or contact us at 1-800-828-9264.

Intel® is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation in the US and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

American Megatrends Announces Support for SMBIOS 3.2.0 Specification

July 16, 2018:

NORCROSS, Georgia: - American Megatrends Inc. (AMI), a global leader in BIOS and UEFI firmware, server and remote management tools, data storage products and unique solutions based on the Linux® and Android™ operating systems announces support for the SMBIOS 3.2.0 specification in its premier UEFI firmware offering, Aptio®V UEFI / BIOS firmware.

The SMBIOS specification is developed by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) and has recently released Version 3.2.0 of the System Management BIOS (SMBIOS) Reference Specification. The System Management BIOS (SMBIOS) specification provides a standards-based approach in presenting management information about a system vendor’s platform. SMBIOS extends the system firmware interface and can be used with management applications, which is otherwise accomplished by presence-detection techniques.

According to a press release from DMTF, “Version 3.2 of SMBIOS adds support for current technologies, including USB Type-C™, PCIe® bifurcation and new processors. In addition, the standard extends support for NVDIMMs and adds support for logical memory type.”

AMI customers requiring SMBIOS 3.2.0 compliance will find value in the added support for new sockets such as socket LGA2066 and the Intel® Core™ i9 processor family, along with support for USB Type-C™ connectors with the addition of Multi-Function Display Ports (MFDP) and Thunderbolt® port connector entries.

SMBIOS version 3.2.0 also adds support for IPMI device information for the SMBus System Interface (SSIF) to support out-of-band management on Arm®-based platforms when used with a Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) and supporting BMC firmware, such as AMI’s own MegaRAC® SP-X BMC firmware.

To learn more about SMBIOS and to download Version 3.2.0, please visit http://www.dmtf.org/standards/smbios.

To learn more about Aptio V UEFI Firmware from American Megatrends, please visit https://ami.com/products/bios-uefi-firmware/aptio-v/.

To learn more about MegaRAC SP-X BMC Firmware from American Megatrends, please visit https://ami.com/products/remote-management/service-processor/.

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
Android is a trademark of Google LLC.
Intel® Core™ i9 is a trademark of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and/or other countries.
USB Type-C™ is a trademark of the USB Implementers Forum.
PCIe® is a registered trademark of PCI-SIG.
Arm is a registered trademark of Arm Limited (or its subsidiaries) in the US and/or elsewhere.

American Megatrends Provides Support for the AHCI Firmware Update in Aptio® V UEFI Firmware

July 11, 2018:

NORCROSS, GEORGIA, USA - American Megatrends Inc. (AMI), a global leader in BIOS and UEFI firmware, server and remote management tools, data storage products and unique solutions based on the Linux® and Android™ operating systems, is pleased to announce support for the AHCI firmware update, outlined in the ATA specification, in AMI's flagship Aptio® V UEFI firmware.

The Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) is a specification by Intel® that outlines the software communication interface between AHCI and Serial ATA (SATA) devices. To allow customers to apply firmware updates to SATA storage devices running Aptio® V UEFI firmware, AMI has added support for the latest AHCI firmware update, specifically the AHCICapsuleUpdate module.

The AHCI firmware update for SATA devices is supported through the Windows® Capsule Interface and AMI has developed a standard method for publishing an EFI System Resource Table (ESRT) entry for SATA device(s) identified on the system. When a new firmware update package is identified for the SATA drive(s), the device driver will distribute the firmware update capsule package and the AHCICapsuleUpdate module will receive the updates from the package using capsule update mechanism. Once the module has these updates, it will then instruct the SATA device(s) to install and apply the new firmware updates.

By providing support for the AHCI firmware update, AMI enables customers to easily apply generic updates to multiple identical drives at the same time, saving time and effort.

To learn more about Aptio V UEFI Firmware from American Megatrends, please visit http://ami.com/products/bios-uefi-firmware/aptio-v/.

Intel is a registered trademark of the Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and/or other countries. Windows is a registered trademark of the Microsoft Corporation or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are property of their respective owners.