Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Asad Yaqoob

Saad Syed

Christopher Scott Dickens

Alaa H Abdelhalim

Chandan Aggarwal

Jeremy Sadler

Ashish Consul

Akil M Merchant

Muhammad Mannan Saleem

Charles W Kaufman

Octavian Tony Ureche

David James Gemmell

Preston Derek Adam

Karthikeyan Subramanian

Shandan Zhou

Matthew Jeremiah Eason

Saurabh Agarwal

Dayi Zhou

Jack Smith Richins

Igal Figlin

Blaine Young

Gowtham Natarajan

Shailesh Padmakar Joshi

Patrick B Azzarello

Salil Bhagurkar

Josh David McKone

Eric Radzikowski

C Scott Dickens

Vipin Kumar

Koon Hui Geoffrey Goh

Soumya D Pani

Piyush Joshi

Charles William Kaufman

Methods and systems are disclosed for activating data encryption at rest in a storage device server in a cloud storage. In particular, an encryption orchestrator orchestrates activation processes through encryption controllers that controls policies and privileges to access data in storage device servers. To reduce a risk of a data loss and time loss in activations, the encryption controller pre-checks a storage device server for anomalies in configurations in network connectivity, encryption keys, and security certificates before starting the activation. Furthermore, the encryption controller performs a health-check of the storage device servers to detect anomalies that require restarting the storage device servers. The health-check reduces a risk of data loss when the storage device servers become unable restart itself. User interface tools may be provided to visually identify and manage encryption statuses and policies of the encryption controllers, the storage device servers, and data storage devices.

Reliable datacenter protection at scale

Embodiments relate to determining whether to take a resource distribution unit (RDU) of a datacenter offline when the RDU becomes faulty. RDUs in a cloud or datacenter supply a resource such as power, network connectivity, and the like to respective sets of hosts that provide computing resources to tenant units such as virtual machines (VMs). When an RDU becomes faulty some of the hosts that it supplies may continue to function and others may become unavailable for various reasons. This can make a decision of whether to take the RDU offline for repair difficult, since in some situations countervailing requirements of the datacenter may be at odds. To decide whether to take an RDU offline, the potential impact on availability of tenant VMs, unused capacity of the datacenter, a number or ratio of unavailable hosts on the RDU, and other factors may be considered to make a balanced decision.

Opportunistic offlining for faulty devices in datacenters

A method and system for determining a device identifier assigned to a device within an installation of devices connected via a network is provided. A system determines the device identifier of a device that has been repaired and reinstalled so that the device can be placed in service. Upon receiving an indication that a repaired device has been reinstalled, the system requests and receives a possible device identifier of the repaired device from an interconnect device that connects the repaired device to the network. To verify that the possible device identifier is the actual device identifier, the system directs the repaired device to reboot so that it broadcasts its device identifier. When the repaired device reboots, it broadcasts its device identifier. Upon receiving the broadcast device identifier, the system verifies that the possible device identifier is the same as the broadcast device identifier.

Automatic identification of returned merchandise in a data center

Automated health monitoring and recovery is provided for infrastructure devices supporting server devices in a data center. Health analysis operations may be selected to be performed on an infrastructure device based on the capabilities of the infrastructure device and/or how the infrastructure device is being used to support server devices in the data center. If the infrastructure device is unhealthy, an automated recovery operation may be performed. The automated recovery operation may include recovery actions selected based on the capabilities of the infrastructure device, the failure mode of the infrastructure device, and/or how the infrastructure device is being used to support server devices in the data center.

Health monitoring and recovery for infrastructure devices

A form of multicast, referred to as 'on-demand multicast,' provides a methodology that allows for 'on demand' multicasting of data. On-demand multicast allows clients to join or leave a transmission at any point. There is no transmission session start or end time&#x2014;the session is continuously available, although data is not necessarily continuously transmitted. Data blocks missed by late-joining clients are retransmitted per amalgamated client requests through multiple transmission cycles until all clients that have joined the transmission session receive all content. Once a client has received all data blocks comprising the content for the session, the client may exit the ongoing session.

Reliable multicast with automatic session startup and client backfill support

Providing a uniform security model to heterogeneous devices in a distributed computing environment. A method includes storing information about a plurality of device security models, including device credentials. The method further includes storing information about a uniform security model, including access rights for various principals. The method further includes identifying a principal. Based on the identified principal, access is provided to the principal according to the uniform security model, based on the device security model credentials.

Managing distributed operating system physical resources

A multicast content provider operates on a multicast server in conjunction with a multicast transmission protocol that is independent of the content data transmitted and allows extensibility in the content provider to distribute any type of content. The content provider module is designed to find, read, write, and transform particular types of data into a form acceptable for transmission by the transmission protocol on the multicast server. The transmission protocol is agnostic to the type, size, format, or location of the data file. The content provider module manages these issues so that the transmission protocol does not have to. This relationship between the content provider module and the transmission protocol establishes a 'generic' multicast solution, capable of complete flexibility with regard to content delivery.

Multicast content provider

A semi-reliable multicast transport protocol uses multiple channels for communication between a server and multiple client devices. A join channel allows the sever to negotiate with client devices to join and exit a transmission session. A communication channel allows the server to communicate with client devices about a status of the transmission session. A polling channel initiated by a content transfer protocol, which runs on top of the transport protocol, transmits polling queries received from the content transfer protocol, receives client device responses to the polling queries, and passes the client device responses to the content transfer protocol. A data channel transmits data to client devices over a network.

Reliable multicast transport protocol

A control protocol is used to deploy and install an operating system image on a client. The data structure of the control protocol includes an operation code corresponding to an operation associated with the deployment and installation of the operating system image on the client. When a server receives a request packet from the client, the server parses the request packet and sends the parsed request packet to a provider. The provider then executes the operation associated with the operation code and generates a return value. The return value is sent to the server. The server then composes a reply packet including the return value and transmits the reply packet to the client.

Control protocol for image enumeration and transfer

Reliable multicast with automatic session startup and client backfil support

A slow client that participates in a reliable multicast session may reduce the speed of data transfer for other clients in the session. A multicast server can mitigate the effect of a slow client by identifying and disconnecting one or more clients that are slowing down the session, or by using other criteria to identify clients to be disconnected. The server may monitor the performance of clients in the session based on factors such as the rate at which each of the clients is able to receive data, the number or rate of packets lost by a client, the amount of time that a client has spent as the slowest client in the session, the identity of a particular client, etc. A client that has been identified for disconnection based on the server's detection efforts, or that has been identified by an administrator, may be disconnected.

Disconnecting selected participant in multicast session

A control protocol is used to deploy and install an operating system image to a client. The data structure of the protocol includes an operation code corresponding to an operation associated with the deployment and installation of an operating system image to a client. When the server receives a request packet, the server parses the request and sends the parsed request to the provider. The provider then executes the operation associated with the operation code and generates a return value. The return value is sent to the server. The server then composes a rely packet including the return value and transmits the reply packet to the client.

Multiple providers of application logic are used to deploy and install an operating system image to a client. Each provider configured with application logic designed to deploy and install an operating system image to a distinct class of clients. When a server receives a request associated with deploying and installing the operating system image from the client, the server sends the request to the provider configured with application logic designed to deploy and install an operating system to the client.

PXE server with multiple provider model

Approving a client to boot in a pre-boot execution environment. A request is received from the client to boot the client by a computing device. The request includes device information associated with the client. A data store having a collection of known device information is queried in response to the received request. The request is stored, and it is determined whether to execute the received request by evaluating the device information in the stored request. The received request is responded to as a function of the evaluated device information.

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Redmond, WA, United States of America

Asad Yaqoob