What’s an ILO?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Lights-Out

Integrated Lights-Out, or iLo, is the Lights out management offering from Hewlett Packard.

The current version for Proliant servers is version 1.88, released 4 October 2006.

iLO makes it possible to perform activities on an HP server from a remote location. The iLO card has a separate network connection (and its own IP address) to which one can connect via HTTPS. Possible options are:

• reset the server (very useful in case the server doesn’t respond anymore via the normal network card, and no one is physically around to do this)

• power-up the server (so it’s possible to do this from a remote location, even if the server is shut down)

• take over the screen

• mount remote physical CD/DVD drive or image.

I’ve written about you configure an ILO card, that is the HP Integrated Lights Out card.  This is a card which is currently integrated into the system board providing the server administrator with lights out management interface.  It’s different to a serial type connection in the respect that I plug in a network cable, from this connection I have a console view, I can build the server remotely, load a virtual floppy, virtual cdrom etc, and remotely manage the server.

It’s terribly useful for general support, like if the server were to blue screen or fail, as well as remote management for servers that you can’t get to using the internal network, web servers, servers connecting to customers/customer sites etc.

Let me give you an example. It’s 3am, an application team have called requesting a windows server is rebooted, it’s run out of memory and has seized. You can’t connect to the server using terminal services, or telnet, in the olden days you might ask operations to physically power cycle the server, but with an ILO, you simply log on to the management console, and either try logging on as normal, or just press the power cycle button. Great for remote administration.

ILO is the HP version of the other servers manufacturers’ lights out management systems.

One Response to “What’s an ILO?”

1. Irfan says:

   March 25, 2011 at 05:46

   Gr8 post
   Vry HELPFULL

   System admin,

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