Virtualized fan speed measurement

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10545515-B2
Application number	US-201515500071-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 27, 2015
Priority date	Apr 27, 2015
Publication date	Jan 28, 2020
Grant date	Jan 28, 2020

Abstract

Example implementations relate to virtualizing fan speed. For example, a system for virtualizing fan speed may include a server enclosure manager connected to a controller area network (CAN) bus, the server enclosure manager to regulate a speed of a fan in a server blade enclosure; and a CAN bus microcontroller connected to the CAN bus. The CAN bus microcontroller may receive a direct current (DC) voltage from an analog low-pass filter, determine a fan speed of the fan corresponding to the received DC voltage, and report the determined fan speed to the enclosure manager.

First claim

What is claimed:

1. A system for virtualized fan speed, comprising:
a server blade enclosure;
a server enclosure manager connected to a controller area network (CAN) bus, the server enclosure manager to regulate a speed of a fan in the server blade enclosure;
a blade disposed within the server blade enclosure; and
a CAN bus microcontroller disposed on the blade in the server blade enclosure and connected to the CAN bus, the CAN bus microcontroller to:
receive a direct current (DC) voltage from an analog low-pass filter, the DC voltage corresponding to a virtualized fan speed;
determine the virtualized fan speed of the fan corresponding to the received DC voltage; and
report the virtualized fan speed to the server enclosure manager.

2. The system of claim 1 , further comprising the CAN bus microcontroller to sample the DC voltage and reconstruct a duty cycle of a pulse-width-modulated (PWM) output corresponding to the DC voltage.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the analog low-pass filter is a resistor-capacitor filter.

4. The system of claim 1 , further comprising the CAN bus microcontroller to report the virtualized fan speed to the enclosure manager via the CAN bus.

5. The system of claim 1 , further comprising the CAN bus microcontroller to report the virtualized fan speed to the enclosure manager without modifying a baseboard management controller in the server blade enclosure.

6. A non-transitory machine readable medium storing instructions executable by a processing resource to:
receive, at a controller area network (CAN) bus microcontroller, a direct current (DC) voltage, the DC voltage sent from an analog low-pass filter and corresponding to a high-frequency pulse-width-modulated (PWM) signal received by the analog low-pass filter;
determine, using the CAN bus microcontroller, a fan speed of a fan in a server blade enclosure corresponding to the received DC voltage;
send, from the CAN bus microcontroller to an enclosure manager, the fan speed; and
provide the fan speed from the enclosure manager to at least one fan in the server blade enclosure.

7. The non-transitory medium of claim 6 , wherein the instructions to send from the CAN bus microcontroller to the enclosure manager, the fan speed, include instructions to send the fan speed to the enclosure manager via a CAN bus.

8. The non-transitory medium of claim 6 , further including instructions to sample, using the CAN bus microcontroller, the DC voltage and reconstruct a duty cycle of the PWM signal from the sampled DC voltage.

9. The non-transitory medium of claim 8 , further including instructions to send the desired fan speed to the fan in response to the reconstruction of the duty cycle by the CAN bus microcontroller.

10. A method for virtualized fan speed measurement, comprising:
receiving, by an analog low-pass filter, a pulse-width modulated (PWM) output corresponding to a virtualized fan speed of a fan from a board management controller disposed on a blade in a server blade enclosure;
converting, by the analog low-pass filter, the PWM output to a direct current (DC) voltage; and
sending, from the analog low-pass filter to an enclosure manager via a controller area network (CAN) bus microcontroller, the DC voltage.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein receiving the PWM output corresponding to the virtualized fan speed includes receiving the PWM output from a baseboard management controller (BMC).

12. The method of claim 10 , wherein converting the PWM output to the DC voltage includes converting the PWM output to a near constant DC voltage.

13. The method of claim 10 , wherein sending the DC voltage to the enclosure manager includes sending the DC voltage to the enclosure manager via a CAN bus.

14. The method of claim 10 , further comprising regulating, using the enclosure manager, the speed of the fan in the server blade enclosure in response to receiving the DC voltage from the analog low-pass filter.

15. The method of claim 10 , further comprising reconstructing, using the CAN bus microcontroller, a duty cycle of the PWM output corresponding to the DC voltage.

16. The system of claim 1 , wherein the server enclosure manager provides the desired fan speed to at least one fan in a server blade enclosure.

17. The non-transitory medium of claim 6 , wherein the PWM signal received by the analog low-pass filter is received from a board management controller disposed on a blade in the server blade enclosure.

18. The non-transitory medium of claim 6 , wherein the CAN bus microcontroller is disposed on a blade in the server blade enclosure.

19. The method of claim 10 , wherein the PWM output is received by the analog low-pass filter from a board management controller that is disposed on a blade in the several blade enclosure.

20. The method of claim 19 , wherein the CAN bus microcontroller is disposed on the blade.

Assignees

• Hewlett Packard Entpr Dev Lp

Inventors

• Truong Huong M
• Olson Alex
• Manweiler Kurt A

Classifications

• G06F1/3243

  Power saving in microcontroller unit · CPC title

• H04L25/4902

  Pulse width modulation; Pulse position modulation · CPC title

• G06F1/3296

  by lowering the supply or operating voltage · CPC title

• H04L2012/40215

  Controller Area Network CAN · CPC title

• H05K7/20727

  within server blades for removing heat from heat source · CPC title