Why iLO RESTful API? ================

This HPE RESTful API for iLO will become the main management API for iLO and iLO Chassis Manager based HPE servers. Its feature set will become larger than the existing iLO XML API (RIBCL) and IPMI interfaces. Using this API, you can take full inventory of the server, control power and reset, configure BIOS and iLO settings, fetch event logs, as well as many other functions.

This API follows the trend of the Internet in moving to a common pattern for new software interfaces. Many web services in a variety of industries use REST APIs because they are easy to implement, easy to consume, and offer scalability advantages over previous technologies. HPE OneView, OpenStack, and many other server management APIs are now REST APIs. Most HPE Management software offerings, as well as the entire Software Defined Data Center architecture, are built upon REST APIs.

The HPE RESTful API for iLO has the additional advantage of consistency across all present and projected server architectures. The same data model works for traditional rack-mount servers, blades, as well as newer types of systems like Moonshot. This advantage comes because the data model is designed to self-describe the service’s capabilities to the client and has room for flexibility designed in from the start.

RESTful APIs are stateless. The resource manager maintains the resource state that is reported as the resource representation. The client maintains the application state and the client might manipulate the resource locally, but until a PATCH or POST is made, the resource, as known by the resource manager, is not changed.

Operation	HTTP Verb	Description
Create	POST resource URI (payload = resource data)	Create new resources. A synchronous POST returns the newly created resource.
Read	GET resource URI	Returns the requested resource representations.
Update	PATCH resource URI (payload = update data)	Updates an existing resource. You can only PATCH properties that are marked readonly = false in the schema.
Delete	DELETE resource URI	Deletes the specified resource.

+------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Return code | Description | +========================+=================================+===========================================================+ | 2xx | Successful operation. | +------------------------+---------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+ | 4xx | Client-side error with error message returned. | +------------------------+---------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+ | 5xx | iLO error with error message returned. | +------------------------+---------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+