Key features include power management, virtual media access and remote console capabilities, all available through a supported web browser or command-line interface.
When iDRAC Express is used, the software and hardware systems management functions are shared with one of the server's on-board network interfaces using a unique IP address.
By contrast, iDRAC Enterprise version features a dedicated physical network interface.
Remote-console capability relies on either an Active X or Java plug-in, or HTML5 in the later models, which displays a window showing the video output on the local terminal and which takes mouse and keyboard input.
The DRAC enables a user to mount remotely shared disk-images as if they were connected to the system.
This is done by configuring the system BIOS to send its output to a serial port (as a stream of text using VT100-compatible control codes).
The latest revision of the DRAC6 uses a Java application instead (launched from within the browser), though both the DRAC5 and iDRAC6 also provided the aforementioned platform-independent SSH access.
iDRAC6 Express (which integrates features previously charged for in DRAC5) became a standard offering on Dell's servers.
Certain features are not available for the Express version, including the remote console functionality and the vFlash SD card slot.
Per introduction in March 2012 the following servers use iDRAC7:[2] iDRAC 7 is supported by the following operating systems The GUI for iDRAC7 uses a Web browser and Java.