Sensing location of rack components

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10432473-B2
Application number	US-201615337732-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 28, 2016
Priority date	Oct 30, 2015
Publication date	Oct 1, 2019
Grant date	Oct 1, 2019

Abstract

Provided is a method of localizing rack-mounted computing devices, the method comprising: receiving, with a direct current (DC) power bus or via an Ethernet control network or data network, a request from a control unit for a rack computing device location; generating, with a sensor, output signals conveying information related to a location of the rack-mounted computing device; and sending, with the direct current (DC) power bus or via an Ethernet control network or data network, location information of the rack-mounted computing device.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of localizing rack-mounted computing devices, the method comprising:
receiving a request for a rack computing device location, the rack computing device being mounted in a rack comprising at least one blind mate power bus;
wirelessly sensing, by a tag reader coupled to a blind mate power adaptor of the rack computing device, a value indicative of the location of the rack computing device, the reader configured to perform operations comprising:
sensing, based on physical proximity between a tag and the tag reader, the value of the tag, the proximity being caused by the rack computing device being mounted in one of a plurality of receptacles in the rack, each of the receptacles being associated with a different tag, each different tag mounted to the rack independent of the rack computing device and encoding a different value indicative of a different location within the rack; and
generating, based on the wirelessly sensed value of the tag, location information related to the location of the rack computing device mounted in the rack; and

transmitting a signal conveying the location information via the blind mate power adaptor of the rack computing device, the blind mate power adaptor being coupled to a blind mate power bus of the rack.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the location information includes latitude, longitude, or altitude.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the location information includes vertical position, horizontal position, or depth position relative to the rack.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
sending, with a direct current (DC) power bus, identification information (ID) of the rack-mounted computing device with the location information.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
sending, with a direct current (DC) power bus, additional sensing information with the location information, wherein the additional sensing information includes presence, condition, state, motion, or environmental information.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
wirelessly sensing, by the tag reader coupled to the blind mate power adaptor of the rack computing device in response to a placement of the rack computing device in a different one of the plurality of receptacles in the rack, a different value indicative of a different location of the rack computing device;
sensing, by the tag reader, based on physical proximity between a different tag corresponding to the different receptacle and the tag reader, the different value of the different tag;
generating, based on the wirelessly sensed different value, second location information related to the different location of the rack computing device within the rack; and
transmitting a second signal conveying the second location information via the blind mate power adaptor coupled to a blind mate power bus of the rack, wherein:
the first signal conveying the first location information and the second signal conveying the second location information are transmitted based in part on the blind mate coupling of the blind mate power adaptor of the rack computing device with an energized blind mate power bus of the rack, the blind mate power bus providing power to the blind mate power adaptor and the tag reader regardless of whether the rack computing device is in a powered on state.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
triggering an alert in response to not receiving location information of the computing device.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
triggering an alert in response to receiving location information indicative of the computing device being in a wrong location.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the tag is a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag and sensing the value of the tag comprises sensing a radio frequency signal encoding a unique identifier of the RFID tag with a radio receiver of the tag reader.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the tag is an optical code tag and sensing the value of the tag comprises sensing a spatially modulated pattern of light encoding an identifier with an optical code scanner of the tag reader.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the optical code scanner is a barcode scanner.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein sensing the value of the tag comprises sensing an identifier unique within a data center with a near-field communications (NFC) sensor of the tag reader.

13. The method of claim 1 , comprising:
inserting the rack computing device into a receptacle in the rack;
aligning a wireless transmitter of the tag with a wireless receiver of the tag reader within the receptacle of the rack, before inserting the rack computing device;
bringing the wireless transmitter from being out of range of the wireless receiver when beginning to insert the rack computing device to being in range of the wireless receiver when the rack computing device is fully inserted into the receptacle;
transmitting a unique identifier from the wireless transmitter to the wireless receiver, wherein the unique identifier uniquely associates the receptacle with the rack computing device among other receptacles in the rack.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein
the wireless receiver is powered by an electrical connection established concurrent with, and a result of, sliding the rack computing device into the receptacle in the rack that couples the blind mate power adaptor of the rack computing device with the blind mate power bus of the rack, wherein the blind mate power adaptor is a bus bar adaptor and the blind mate power bus is a bus bar and the bus bar adaptor is aligned with the bus bar concurrent with the sliding the rack computing device into the receptacle in the rack.

15. The method of claim 13 , wherein:
the wireless transmitter does not have a battery or a wired connection to a power source.

16. The method of claim 13 , wherein:
the wireless transmitter is inductively powered by the wireless receiver.

17. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the rack holds a plurality of computing devices including the rack computing device, each computing device being in spaced relation with a different respective rack-mounted wireless transmitter configured to emit a wireless signal encoding a different identifier;
the rack comprises a direct current (DC) power bus configured to power operation of the rack computing device via the blind mate power bus;
the rack comprises a rack controller having a processor, a memory, and a powerline modem operative to send commands to, and receive data from the rack computing device via the DC power bus; and
the blind mate power adaptor of the rack computing device comprising:
a powerline modem;
a microcontroller operative to execute commands sent by the rack controller, the commands including requests for location of the rack computing device; and
wherein the tag reader is configured to obtain location information of the rack computing device from one of the wireless transmitters and provide the location information to the microcontroller, wherein a range of the wireless transmitters is less than 20 centimeters.

18. The method of claim 1 , wherein the rack-mounted. computing device is connected to a power drop, the method further comprising:
sending, via the blind mate power adaptor coupled to the blind mate power bus of the rack, a unique identifier of the power drop indicating which one of a plurality of power drops in a data center provides power to the rack computing device.

19. The method of claim 18 , wherein the unique identifier o

Assignees

• Vapor Io Inc

Inventors

• Cencini Andrew
• White Steven
• Kaplin Dave
• Crawford Cole Malone

Classifications

• H02J7/00

  Circuit arrangements for charging or discharging batteries or for supplying loads from batteries · CPC title

• H04W4/023

  using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds · CPC title

• H05K7/1488

  Cabinets therefor, e.g. chassis or racks or mechanical interfaces between blades and support structures · CPC title

• G06K7/1413

  1D bar codes · CPC title

• H04L67/12

  specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks · CPC title