What’s this ILO, RIB, RIB2 stuff?

In the olden days, say I had a critical web server, a Compaq Proliant 1850r, and I wanted lights out functionality, or the server was ‘beyond the firewall’ (that is customer facing), I might use the lights out function to manage the application. As part of this, I would therefore buy a Compaq RIB card.  There’s a picture of the RIB2 here: http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/servers/management/riloe2/index.html (they look similar)

HP then released the RIB2 which had some extra features and also brought support for some of the new server models as well as the DL range servers which can use the existing RIB card.

In the last few years, HP started putting the RIB card on the system board, making it a standard part of the server, so any DL360/380/580 G2 and above typically came with an ILO, and integrated RIB card. (The 760G2 and I think the early Compaq 360G2/380G2s were an exception)

On a blade therefore your lights out card is an ILO, an integrated RIB card, exactly the same functionally as a RIB but with enhanced functionality. More recently, the new boxes have been getting ILO2, which has some features for power, as well as support for bootable dvd images.

On the IBM bladecenter what you get is a management port giving you access to the bladecenter enclosure, from their you can configure the enclosure and launch a lights out connection to each of the blades within that enclosure.