Vital Product Data is a collection of configuration and informational data associated with a particular set of hardware or software. Vital product data (VPD) stores information such as part numbers, serial numbers, and engineering change levels. Not all devices attached to a system will provide VPD, but it is often available from PCI

Peripheral Component Interconnect

Conventional PCI is a computer bus for attaching hardware devices in a computer...

 and SCSI

SCSI

Small Computer System Interface is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices. The SCSI standards define commands, protocols, and electrical and optical interfaces. SCSI is most commonly used for hard disks and tape drives, but it...

 devices. ATA

ATA

ATA or Ata may refer to:* Ata , people with the first name or family name-Education:* Ashcroft Technology Academy, Wandsworth, London, England* Advanced Technologies Academy, a high school in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA...

 and USB devices also provide similar data, but do not refer to it as VPD.

In AIX

AIX operating system

AIX AIX AIX (Advanced Interactive eXecutive, pronounced "a i ex" is a series of proprietary Unix operating systems developed and sold by IBM for several of its computer platforms...

, VPD also refers to a subset of database tables in the Object Data Manager

Object Data Manager

Object Data Manager is a database management system and device configuration integrated into IBM's AIX operating system. The ODM is unique to AIX compared to other UNIX operating systems. Data being managed by ODM is stored and maintained as objects with associated attributes...

 (ODM) obtained from either the Customized VPD object class or platform specific areas, therefore the VPD and ODM terms are sometimes referred to interchangeably.
lscfg command can be used in AIX to get the VPD.

lscfg [-v] [-p] [-s] [-l Name]

In Linux

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

, the commands `vpddecode', `biosdecode', and `dmidecode' can be used to view hardware the Vital Product Data.

VPD data is typically burned onto EEPROM

EEPROM

EEPROM stands for Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory and is a type of non-volatile memory used in computers and other electronic devices to store small amounts of data that must be saved when power is removed, e.g., calibration...

's associated with various hardware components, or can be queried through attached I2C buses. It is used by firmware

Firmware

In electronic systems and computing, firmware is a term often used to denote the fixed, usually rather small, programs and/or data structures that internally control various electronic devices...

 (for example, OpenFirmware) to determine the nature of the system hardware, and to shield the operation of the firmware from minor changes and variations of hardware implementations within a given machine model number.