Automatic system response to external field-replaceable unit (FRU) process

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10992746-B2
Application number	US-201916435791-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 10, 2019
Priority date	Dec 15, 2015
Publication date	Apr 27, 2021
Grant date	Apr 27, 2021

Abstract

System management services can discover the addition of new physical devices, take automated actions to provision software (operating system and other related cloud services software components) on them, and scale out management infrastructure based on the new capacity of the total resources (including the newly added resources). A configuration file can contain the rules for automatic expansion and contraction of the system.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method performed by a computing system, comprising:
detecting a connection of a subject computing hardware to the computing system;
in response to detecting the connection of the subject computing hardware to the computing system, determining whether the subject computing hardware is new hardware or replacement hardware that was previously connected to the computing by comparing an identifier for the subject computing hardware with one or more identifiers for computing hardware previously connected to the computing system, the one or more identifiers stored within at least one memory device of the computing system;
automatically adjusting the management infrastructure for the computing system based on detecting the connection of the subject computing hardware to the computing system and rules of a configuration file stored in the at least one memory device for controlling the automatic adjustment of a management infrastructure for the computing system, wherein automatically adjusting the management infrastructure includes:
(i) in response to determining that the subject computing hardware is new hardware, automatically loading a new configuration of software from the computing system onto the subject computing hardware based on the rules of the configuration file, and
(ii) in response to determining that the subject computing hardware is replacement hardware, automatically loading a previous configuration of software of the subject computing hardware from the computing system onto the subject computing hardware based on the rules of the configuration file, the previous configuration differing from the new configuration and being the same configuration of software that was previously on the replacement hardware.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more identifiers stored within the at least one memory device include a medium access control (MAC) address.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more identifiers stored within the at least one memory device include a manufacturer's name.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the previous configuration of software includes a previously registered software image.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein automatically loading the new configuration of software onto the subject computing hardware includes initiating a setup process or a registration process.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the configuration file includes an XML file.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
scaling up the computing system by adding a virtual machine via the subject computing hardware detected as being connected to the computing system.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
scaling up the computing system by adding a storage node via the subject computing hardware detected as being connected to the computing system.

9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
scaling up the computing system by adding a management infrastructure node via the subject computing hardware detected as being connected to the computing system.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the computing system includes a server system of a data center.

11. A computing system, comprising:
one or more processors;
one or more storage devices having instructions stored thereon executable by the one or more processors to:
detect a connection of a subject computing hardware to the computing system;
in response to detecting the connection of the subject computing hardware to the computing system, determine whether the subject computing hardware is new hardware or replacement hardware that was previously connected to the computing by comparing an identifier for the subject computing hardware with one or more identifiers for computing hardware previously connected to the computing system, the one or more identifiers stored within at least one memory device of the computing system;
automatically adjust the management infrastructure for the computing system based on detecting the connection of the subject computing hardware to the computing system and rules of a configuration file stored in the at least one memory device for controlling the automatic adjustment of a management infrastructure for the computing system, wherein the management infrastructure is automatically adjusted by:
(i) in response to determining that the subject computing hardware is new hardware, automatically load a new configuration of software from the computing system onto the subject computing hardware based on the rules of the configuration file, and
(ii) in response to determining that the subject computing hardware is replacement hardware, automatically load a previous configuration of software of the subject computing hardware from the computing system onto the subject computing hardware based on the rules of the configuration file, the previous configuration differing from the new configuration and being the same configuration of software that was previously on the replacement hardware.

12. The computing system of claim 11 , wherein the one or more identifiers stored within the at least one memory device include a medium access control (MAC) address.

13. The computing system of claim 11 , wherein the one or more identifiers stored within the at least one memory device include a manufacturer's name.

14. The computing system of claim 11 , wherein the previous configuration of software includes a previously registered software image.

15. The computing system of claim 11 , wherein automatically loading the new configuration of software onto the subject computing hardware includes initiating a setup process or a registration process.

16. The computing system of claim 11 , wherein the configuration file includes an XML file.

17. The computing system of claim 11 , wherein the instructions are further executable by the one or more processors to:
scale up the computing system by adding a virtual machine via the subject computing hardware detected as being connected to the computing system.

18. The computing system of claim 11 , wherein the instructions are further executable by the one or more processors to:
scale up the computing system by adding a storage node or a management infrastructure node via the subject computing hardware detected as being connected to the computing system.

19. The computing system of claim 11 , wherein the computing system includes a server system of a data center.

20. A computing system, comprising:
one or more processors;
one or more storage devices having instructions stored thereon executable by the one or more processors to:
detect a connection of a subject computing hardware to the computing system;
in response to detecting the connection of the subject computing hardware to the computing system, determine whether the subject computing hardware is new hardware or replacement hardware that was previously connected to the computing by comparing an identifier for the subject computing hardware with one or more identifiers for computing hardware previously connected to the computing system, the one or more identifiers stored within at least one memory device of the computing system;
automatically adjust the management infrastructure for the computing system based on detecting the connection of the subject computing hardware to the computing system and rules of a configuration file stored in the at least one memory device for controlling the automatic adjustment of a management infrastructure for the computing system, the rules of the configuration file identi

Assignees

• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Lucas Shawn
• Wei Cheng
• Maknojia Rahim
• Gibson Robert S T

Classifications

• G06F8/61 Primary

  Installation · CPC title

• H04L67/54

  Presence management, e.g. monitoring or registration for receipt of user log-on information, or the connection status of the users · CPC title

• H04L41/0886

  Fully automatic configuration · CPC title

• G06F2209/505

  Clust · CPC title

• H04L67/1031 Primary

  Controlling of the operation of servers by a load balancer, e.g. adding or removing servers that serve requests · CPC title