Systems and methods for infrastructure template provisioning in modular chassis systems

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9491050-B2
Application number	US-201313955423-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 31, 2013
Priority date	Jul 31, 2013
Publication date	Nov 8, 2016
Grant date	Nov 8, 2016

Abstract

Systems and methods for provisioning the infrastructure of modular information handling systems, such as modular blade server chassis systems, using one or more pre-defined templates. IT service templates may be initially loaded and present in local memory or storage of a modular information handling system to define the system infrastructure configuration that ship with the modular chassis platform, or may be later downloaded or otherwise received in local memory or storage later from an external source after system installation to specify the desired end-state of the system infrastructure configuration.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A scalable information handling chassis system having chassis information technology (IT) resources, the chassis system comprising one or more network devices and at least one processing device integrated into a single chassis, the at least one processing device configured to:
perform a template query of a selected locally deployed IT service template to determine required IT resources and connectivity for at least one IT service,
where the selected locally deployed IT service template defines the resource requirements for implementing the at least one IT service on the scalable information handling chassis system, the defined resource requirements comprising a combination of multiple required chassis IT resources and the required physical connectivity between the multiple chassis IT resources;

perform an inventory query to determine the identity and capabilities of physical chassis IT resources of the information handling chassis system and an physical connectivity between the physical chassis IT resources of the information handling chassis system;
based on the template and inventory queries, evaluate the determined required IT resources and connectivity for the at least one IT service by:
determining if the physical chassis IT resources of the information handling chassis system are capable of implementing the at least one IT service based on the determined required IT resources and connectivity, and
determining if the physical connectivity between the physical chassis IT resources of the information handling chassis system is capable of fulfilling the required physical connectivity between the chassis IT resources to implement the at least one IT service based on the determined required IT resources and; and

based on the evaluation of the determined IT resources and connectivity, provision the infrastructure of the scalable information handling chassis system according to the selected locally deployed IT service template based on:
the physical chassis IT resources of the information handling chassis system being determined to be capable of implementing the at least one IT service of the selected locally deployed IT service template, and
the physical connectivity between the physical chassis IT resources of the information handling chassis system being determined to be capable of fulfilling the required physical connectivity between the chassis IT resources of the selected locally deployed IT service template.

2. The system of claim 1 , where the chassis IT resources of the information handling chassis system comprise a combination of IT compute resources, IT networking resources, and storage resources.

3. The system of claim 1 , where the at least one local processing device of the information handling chassis system is configured to perform the template query of the selected locally deployed IT service template to determine the combination of multiple IT resource requirements for implementing the at least one IT service on the scalable information handling chassis system.

4. The system of claim 1 , where the at least one local processing device of the information handling chassis system is configured to perform at least one of the following steps:
output an alert message if the physical chassis IT resources of the information handling chassis system are determined not to be capable of implementing the at least one IT service of the selected locally deployed IT service template, or
output an alert message if the physical connectivity between the chassis IT resources of the information handling chassis system is not capable of fulfilling the required physical connectivity between the chassis IT resources of the selected locally deployed IT service template.

5. The system of claim 1 , where the at least one local processing device of the information handling chassis system is configured to perform the template query of the selected locally deployed IT service template to determine the combination of resource requirements for implementing the at least one IT service on the scalable information handling chassis system.

6. The system of claim 5 , where the selected locally deployed IT service template defines the desired end-state of the system infrastructure configuration that includes a configuration of a combination of compute, networking and storage resources, and physical connectivity requirements between the combination of compute, networking and storage resources to enable the system infrastructure to host the at least one IT service.

7. The system of claim 5 , where the scalable information handling chassis system comprises a modular blade server chassis system; and where the IT compute resources comprise one or more modular blade servers.

8. The system of claim 1 , where the at least one local processing device of the information handling chassis system is configured to
download the selected locally deployed IT service template into local memory or storage of the scalable information handling chassis system from a source external to the scalable information handling chassis system.

9. The system of claim 1 , where the at least one local processing device of the information handling chassis system is configured to accept one or more template parameters entered by a user for inclusion into a pre-defined IT service template; and then to deploy the pre-defined IT service template as the selected locally deployed IT service template.

10. The system of claim 1 , where the at least one local processing device of the information handling chassis system is configured to accept a user selection identifying a particular pre-defined IT service template; and then to deploy the identified pre-defined IT service template as the selected locally deployed IT service template.

11. The system of claim 1 , where the determined physical connectivity between the physical chassis IT resources of the information handling chassis system is a determined physical connection topology that includes the determined presence of physical interconnection links between hardware components of the physical chassis IT resources within the chassis of the information handling system.

12. The system of claim 1 , where the chassis IT resources of the information handling chassis system comprise a combination of IT compute resources that include one or more blade servers, IT networking resources that include a networking infrastructure, and storage resources that include an external storage device coupled to the information handling system.

13. The system of claim 1 , where the chassis IT resources of the information handling chassis system comprise hardware components of the information handling system.

14. A method for provisioning the infrastructure of a scalable information handling chassis system having chassis information technology (IT) resources, the chassis system comprising one or more network devices and at least one processing device integrated into a single chassis, the method comprising:
using the at least one processing device of the information handing chassis system to perform a template query of a selected locally deployed IT service template to determine required IT resources and connectivity for at least one IT service,
where the selected locally deployed IT service template defines the resource requirements for implementing the at least one IT service on the scalable information handling chassis system, the defined resource requirements comprising a combination of multiple required chassis IT resources and the required physical connectivity between the multiple chassis IT resources;

using the at least one processing device

Assignees

• Shetty Sudhir V
• Weilnau Wayne R
• Dell Products Lp

Inventors

• Shetty Sudhir V
• Weilnau Wayne R

Classifications

• G06F9/5011 Primary

  the resources being hardware resources other than CPUs, Servers and Terminals · CPC title

• H04L41/0806 Primary

  for initial configuration or provisioning, e.g. plug-and-play · CPC title