Dynamic assignment of storage devices responsive to movement of blade servers among slots of a chassis of a modular server

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12156367-B2
Application number	US-202318133064-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 11, 2023
Priority date	Apr 11, 2023
Publication date	Nov 26, 2024
Grant date	Nov 26, 2024

Abstract

An apparatus comprises a processing device configured to identify, for a modular server, blade servers installed in a first subset of slots of a chassis of the modular server and storage servers installed in a second subset of the slots. The processing device is also configured to determine, for the modular server, assignment of storage devices of the storage servers installed in the second subset of the slots to respective ones of the first subset of the slots in which the blade servers are installed. The processing device is further configured to detect movement of a given blade server from a first to a second slot in the first subset of the slots, and to dynamically reassign at least a subset of the storage devices from the first to the second slot responsive to validating a configuration of the given blade server moved from the first to the second slot.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An apparatus comprising:
at least one processing device comprising a processor coupled to a memory;
the at least one processing device being configured:
to identify, for a modular server comprising a chassis with a plurality of slots, one or more blade servers installed in a first subset of the plurality of slots of the chassis and one or more storage servers installed in a second subset of the plurality of slots of the chassis;
to determine, for the modular server, assignment of storage devices of the one or more storage servers installed in the second subset of the plurality of slots of the chassis to respective ones of the first subset of the plurality of slots of the chassis in which the one or more blade servers are installed;
to detect movement of a given one of the one or more blade servers from a first slot to a second slot in the first subset of the plurality of slots;
to validate a configuration of the given blade server moved from the first slot to the second slot; and
to dynamically reassign at least a subset of the storage devices from the first slot to the second slot responsive to validating the configuration of the given blade server moved from the first slot to the second slot.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the at least one processing device comprises a chassis controller of the chassis of the modular server.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein identifying the one or more blade servers installed in the first subset of the plurality of slots comprises determining a hardware configuration of each of the one or more blade servers installed in the first subset of the plurality of slots.

4. The apparatus of claim 3 wherein the determined hardware configuration for the given blade server is maintained in a trusted platform module of the at least one processing device.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein determining the assignment of the storage devices of the one or more storage servers installed in the second subset of the plurality of slots of the chassis to respective ones of the first subset of the plurality of slots of the chassis in which the one or more blade servers are installed comprises generating a logical storage tree of mappings between the storage devices of the one or more storage servers and the first subset of the plurality of slots of the chassis.

6. The apparatus of claim 5 wherein the logical storage tree comprises a logical abstraction of physical storage assignment of the storage devices of the one or more storage servers to the one or more blade servers.

7. The apparatus of claim 5 wherein the logical storage tree comprises one or more controller groups and one or more storage device groups.

8. The apparatus of claim 5 wherein the logical storage tree comprises information for each of the one or more blade servers, the information for the given blade server comprising an identifier of the given blade server, a given slot number of the chassis in which the given blade server is installed, and an inventory of the storage devices assigned to the given slot number of the chassis.

9. The apparatus of claim 5 wherein dynamically reassigning at least a subset of the storage devices from the first slot to the second slot responsive to validating the configuration of the given blade server moved from the first slot to the second slot comprises identifying a storage configuration of the given blade server based at least in part on mapping an identifier of the given blade server to the logical storage tree.

10. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein validating the configuration of the given blade server comprises detecting tampering of the given blade server.

11. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein validating the configuration of the given blade server comprises determining whether any malicious software is detected on the given blade server.

12. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein validating the configuration of the given blade server comprises comparing a hardware inventory of the given blade server before and after movement of the given blade server from the first slot to the second slot.

13. The apparatus of claim 12 wherein the hardware inventory of the given blade server before movement of the given blade server from the first slot to the second slot is maintained in a trusted platform module of the at least one processing device, and wherein the hardware inventory of the given blade server after movement of the given blade server from the first slot to the second slot is determined utilizing one or more physical security algorithms of the trusted platform module.

14. The apparatus of claim 12 wherein, responsive to determining that a first hardware inventory of the given blade server before movement of the given blade server from the first slot to the second slot does not match a second hardware inventory of the given blade server after movement of the given blade server from the first slot to the second slot, the configuration of the given blade server is validated by a user proving a trusted platform module security key of the trusted platform module.

15. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory processor-readable storage medium having stored therein program code of one or more software programs, wherein the program code when executed by at least one processing device causes the at least one processing device:
to identify, for a modular server comprising a chassis with a plurality of slots, one or more blade servers installed in a first subset of the plurality of slots of the chassis and one or more storage servers installed in a second subset of the plurality of slots of the chassis;
to determine, for the modular server, assignment of storage devices of the one or more storage servers installed in the second subset of the plurality of slots of the chassis to respective ones of the first subset of the plurality of slots of the chassis in which the one or more blade servers are installed;
to detect movement of a given one of the one or more blade servers from a first slot to a second slot in the first subset of the plurality of slots;
to validate a configuration of the given blade server moved from the first slot to the second slot; and
to dynamically reassign at least a subset of the storage devices from the first slot to the second slot responsive to validating the configuration of the given blade server moved from the first slot to the second slot.

16. The computer program product of claim 15 wherein determining the assignment of the storage devices of the one or more storage servers installed in the second subset of the plurality of slots of the chassis to respective ones of the first subset of the plurality of slots of the chassis in which the one or more blade servers are installed comprises generating a logical storage tree of mappings between the storage devices of the one or more storage servers and the first subset of the plurality of slots of the chassis.

17. The computer program product of claim 15 wherein validating the configuration of the given blade server comprises comparing a hardware inventory of the given blade server before and after movement of the given blade server from the first slot to the second slot.

18. A method comprising:
identifying, for a modular server comprising a chassis with a plurality of slots, one or more blade servers installed in a first subset of the plurality of slots of the chassis and one or more storage servers installed in a second subset of the plurality of slots of the chassis;
determining, for the modular server, assignment of sto

Assignees

• Dell Products Lp

Inventors

• Sethi Parminder Singh
• Kumar Suren
• Ramarao Veena

Classifications

• G06F9/4411 Primary

  Configuring for operating with peripheral devices; Loading of device drivers · CPC title

• H05K7/1498 Primary

  Resource management, Optimisation arrangements, e.g. configuration, identification, tracking, physical location (thermal management H05K7/20836) · CPC title