Abstract: In general, techniques for communicating within a mainframe computing system via a virtual Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) protocol are described herein. More specifically, the mainframe computing system comprises a first cell that forms an Ethernet message to directly encapsulate an IPMI message without further encapsulating the IPMI message within any other protocol message. The mainframe computing system further comprises other cells. The cell further transmits the Ethernet message to at least one of the other cells. The first cell couples to the other cells via an Ethernet interconnect however, and not an IPMB. The cells overcome this limitation by communicating via the virtual IPMI protocol, which allows each cell to leverage pre-configured support of IPMI over the Ethernet interconnect and thereby forgo the requirement of an IPMB to communicate via IPMI.