Patent Application
20080059626
The subject matter which is regarded as the invention is particularly pointed out and distinctly claimed in the claims at the conclusion of the specification. The foregoing and other objects, features, and advantages of the invention are apparent from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which:
The detailed description explains the preferred embodiments of the invention, together with advantages and features, by way of example with reference to the drawings.
Referring to
Many critical components of the central server 10 can be made redundant or hot-swappable, including cooling systems, power supplies, Ethernet controllers and switches, mid-planes and backplanes, hard disk drives and service processors. In short, the central server 10 and the blades 5 therein provide resources for storing and executing software (machine readable instructions).
The benefits of using a central server 10 such as a BLADECENTER are known to anyone tasked with running down hundreds of cables strung through racks just to add and remove resources. With switches and power units shared, precious space is freed up. This means that blade servers 5 enable higher density of computing resources with far greater ease.
In blade technology, new servers are deployed by sliding blades 5 in and out of the chassis 3. Each blade 5 connects to infrastructure components coupled to the chassis 3. Therefore, most designs for blades 5 do not require plugging of multiple cables for installation. Exemplary infrastructure components include a keyboard 6, a video display 7, a mouse 8, a media tray 11 and a network 13. Collectively, the keyboard 6, video display 7 and mouse 8 are referred to as a KVM 9. Other components include a compact disc drive, a floppy drive, and other types of drives, which are collectively referred to as the “media tray 11.”
In typical embodiments, a plurality of lighted buttons 4 are included on each blade 5. The lighted buttons 4 provide, among other things, a status of the respective blade 5 regarding the operation of the KVM 9 and the media tray 11. For example, a given blade 5 may indicate ownership of at least one of the KVM 9 and the media tray 11 by having appropriate buttons 4 in a lighted condition. In one embodiment, a user may press the various buttons 4 of a blade 5 to assume control (ownership) over at least one of the KVM 9 and the media tray 11.
In advanced blade server systems, machine readable and executable instructions deployed as software provide additional aspects of functionality. For example, in one embodiment, when one slides the blade 5 into a bay of the chassis 3, the software automatically loads a designated operating system and application image into the blade 5. This provides for getting the newly installed blade 5 up and running with no human intervention. The software typically provides for repurposing of each blade 5 as necessary, replacing a failing blade 5 or applying spare blades 5 to help handle peak loads and may perform other functions as desired by system designers, managers or users.
In one embodiment of the present invention, and with reference to
The teachings herein provide for improvements over the prior art by techniques that include communication of data between blades 5 and the management module 12. The data may include, without limitation, information regarding a slot location for each blade 5, a power status for each blade 5, ownership of the KVM 9 by a respective blade 5, ownership of the media tray 11 by a respective blade 5, an error status for a respective blade 5. The techniques also provide for integration of data gathered into a blade-specific graphical/textual format and display of that information by each individual blade 5.
As an example of the present teachings, when the user switches the video display 7 from a first blade 5 to a second blade 5, the video display 7 updates and displays information relevant to the second blade 5 (currently providing a video signal) and the system (i.e., the central server 10) as a whole.
Collecting and displaying status information. In typical embodiments, the management module 12 will gather status information for the central server 10 and each blade 5 and relay the information to the plurality of blades 5. The status information will include and is not limited to information regarding “blade slot number”, “Have errors been logged for this blade” “have errors been logged for other blades”, “does blade currently have (KVM)”, “Server power consumption and management information,” and other aspects of interest. In typical embodiments of the central server 10 (i.e., the BLADECENTER), the information relay will occur over a communications bus. One non-limiting example of the communications bus is an RS-485 bus, using H8 or IPMI protocols.
Given the great variety of resources that may be employed in a central server 10, it is considered likely that status information relevant to one blade 5 may not be relevant to another blade 5. The teachings herein provide for collection and display of status information that is common to each of the blades 5 as well as other status information that is unique to the various blades 5 and other components of the central server 10.
Once the status information is received by the Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) for each blade 5, the status information may be viewed by users logged onto the respective blade. Displaying the status information may be achieved by a variety of techniques, with the following methods being exemplary.
In a first technique, the status information contained in the BMC of the blade 5 is provided as a direct overlay on the video display 7 associated with the blade 5. One way to accomplish this is through video BIOS writes of the status information. APIs must be provided for the BMC to deliver graphical content to portions of the video BIOS.
In another technique, a software client which executes through the operating system of the blade 5 may display the status information. This software client may include a graphical display or a command line interface (useful for blades 5 which do not have video capabilities). The transactions between the BMC and the operating system will typically occur over the Low Pin Count (LPC) bus.
Both techniques serve to benefit users whether they are using the blades locally through the KVM 9 for the central server 10, or over a remote console 15 where the Blade video, keyboard, and mouse are packetized and sent over the network 13 to a client application.
In the window 25, a variety of conventions are used for display of the assortment of status information that is gathered. As techniques for display of such status information are generally well known, these are also not discussed in greater depth herein.
Providing status information 100 is typically completed by the management module 12, however, providing 100 may be completed by any resource as desired. For example, providing 100 may be assigned to the blade 5 having KVM ownership, or a certain default blade order.
The capabilities of the present invention can be implemented in software, firmware, hardware or some combination thereof.
As one example, one or more aspects of the present invention can be included in an article of manufacture (e.g., one or more computer program products) having, for instance, computer usable media. The media has embodied therein, for instance, computer readable program code means for providing and facilitating the capabilities of the present invention. The article of manufacture can be included as a part of a computer system or sold separately.
Additionally, at least one program storage device readable by a machine, tangibly embodying at least one program of instructions executable by the machine to perform the capabilities of the present invention can be provided.
The flow diagrams depicted herein are just examples. There may be many variations to these diagrams or the steps (or operations) described therein without departing from the spirit of the invention. For instance, the steps may be performed in a differing order, or steps may be added, deleted or modified. All of these variations are considered a part of the claimed invention.
While the preferred embodiment to the invention has been described, it will be understood that those skilled in the art, both now and in the future, may make various improvements and enhancements which fall within the scope of the claims which follow. These claims should be construed to maintain the proper protection for the invention first described.
