I saw this thread and made me want to ask the question; for those that have used both, pros/ cons of each solution?
HP ILO v Supermicro IPMI - Looking for experiences for those that have used both
- Thread starter Jeggs101
- Start date
Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.
, let's not talk about licencing either...Runs fine on both Win8 PC's here, seems to work better in I.e. than Firefox for me. Have you tried manually removing Java and downloading the latest rather than a constantly updated one.
Also the supermicro IPMIview uses a slightly older iKVM which seems a little quicker, might be worth a try? ftp://ftp.supermicro.com/utility/IPMIView/IPMIView-2.9.15-build121211.zip
I use both the Supermicro IPMI/IPKVM and HP iLO3.
The Supermicro gives you all of the most popular features for free and, for me, it works almost all of the time. I can log in, power on the server, and then pull up a graphical console over Ethernet. After that, I can attach a virtual CD/DVD drive for an OS install, and then wiggle the keyboard and mouse with abandon. I have no complaints.
HP ILO3 offers the basic features as with Supermicro (with one big exception I'll mention soon) plus some very appealing advanced features:
- Fine-grained power usage monitoring and graphing along with power capping and fancy automated power supply control
- iOS and Android clients in addition to the usual web and fat clients
- both Java and .Net IPKVM clients in case Java is not installed on a given laptop
- IPKVM screen sharing through the .net client
- Scripting environment
- Directory/Kerberos integration including both users and groups. SSO for Kerberos setups
- The ability to configure somewhat fine-grained security for multi-user setups
- OS-level integration, including VMWare
- SSH client
That's a pretty nice "Enterprise" feature set for the HP iLO, but there is a catch, actually two of them. First, in order to get the advanced features, you need to buy a license key. A $400 license key. Second, you are really going to be forced into buying that license. The IPKVM feature - the ability to grab a keyboard/mouse/monitor session remotely via your Ethernet network - is included only in the "advanced" feature set, even though it's a very basic feature of any remote management setup. Yes, you can log in to the server via IPKVM without the advanced license, but it'll kick you out once the server has booted.
Lastly, I have had some trouble with iLO somehow rebooting the server if left running for too long, even with the latest firmware. I avoid using the HP IPKVM for longer than absolutely necessary for that reason.
To sumarize:
Supermicro: Basic remote management for free.
HP: Advanced remote management for a fee.
You can find HP iLO licenses on eBay for $40 to $75. At least one eBay-sourced license I know of turned out to be a new and very real (non-pirated) iLO license, but was issued through HP China for what I presume is a far lower price than a US license. I'd avoid buying eBay iLO licenses if you are a for-profit entity.
The Supermicro gives you all of the most popular features for free and, for me, it works almost all of the time. I can log in, power on the server, and then pull up a graphical console over Ethernet. After that, I can attach a virtual CD/DVD drive for an OS install, and then wiggle the keyboard and mouse with abandon. I have no complaints.
HP ILO3 offers the basic features as with Supermicro (with one big exception I'll mention soon) plus some very appealing advanced features:
- Fine-grained power usage monitoring and graphing along with power capping and fancy automated power supply control
- iOS and Android clients in addition to the usual web and fat clients
- both Java and .Net IPKVM clients in case Java is not installed on a given laptop
- IPKVM screen sharing through the .net client
- Scripting environment
- Directory/Kerberos integration including both users and groups. SSO for Kerberos setups
- The ability to configure somewhat fine-grained security for multi-user setups
- OS-level integration, including VMWare
- SSH client
That's a pretty nice "Enterprise" feature set for the HP iLO, but there is a catch, actually two of them. First, in order to get the advanced features, you need to buy a license key. A $400 license key. Second, you are really going to be forced into buying that license. The IPKVM feature - the ability to grab a keyboard/mouse/monitor session remotely via your Ethernet network - is included only in the "advanced" feature set, even though it's a very basic feature of any remote management setup. Yes, you can log in to the server via IPKVM without the advanced license, but it'll kick you out once the server has booted.
Lastly, I have had some trouble with iLO somehow rebooting the server if left running for too long, even with the latest firmware. I avoid using the HP IPKVM for longer than absolutely necessary for that reason.
To sumarize:
Supermicro: Basic remote management for free.
HP: Advanced remote management for a fee.
You can find HP iLO licenses on eBay for $40 to $75. At least one eBay-sourced license I know of turned out to be a new and very real (non-pirated) iLO license, but was issued through HP China for what I presume is a far lower price than a US license. I'd avoid buying eBay iLO licenses if you are a for-profit entity.
Last edited:
I use both. HP interface is somewhat slicker if you are a gui user. I find the tools better for IPMI when it comes to CLI work but we seem to get quite a few Java type issues with AMI IPMI web page interface. A lot of the HPs support IPMI through ILO (Tends to be the cheaper ones that offer ILO with IPMI support).