The present invention relates to a management agent that can be ran on any operating system. More specifically, the management agent of the present invention is implemented with a set of application program interfaces (APIs) that allows the management agent to be independent of operating systems. The APIs makes the management agent portable across multiple operating systems. In an embodiment of the present invention, a Compact Peripheral Component Interconnect (CPCI) computer system includes a CPCI chassis, a circuit board located within the CPCI chassis, a first central processing unit (CPU) card coupled with the circuit board. The CPCI computer system also includes a second CPU card coupled with the circuit board, a first management agent located within the first CPU card, and a second management agent located within the second CPU card. The first and second CPU cards each respectively has a first operating system and a second operating system.