How is IPMI supposed to work?

[David Sparks]

How is IPMI supposed to work?  Take this:

# ipmitool sdr type "Power Supply"
Status           | 42h | ok  | 10.8 | Presence detected
Status           | 43h | ok  | 10.9 | Presence detected, Failure detected, 
Power Supply AC lost
VRM              | 44h | ok  |  3.2 | Presence detected
VRM              | 45h | ok  |  3.3 | Presence detected
PS Redundancy    | 53h | ok  |  7.1 | Redundancy Lost

What use is that "ok" above when the reading column says "Failure detected"? 
Is there some way to query IPMI to actually get a status?

Perhaps ok means something totally different?

Thanks!