Dell Products Inc.

Lixia Hu

Zhuo Zhang

Kai Zhou

Tianhe Li

Qian Yang

Joan Jun Xiong

Kai Chen

Rui Jiang

Niannian Xia

A disclosed event notification management method and service for use with a multi-node, hyper-converged infrastructure (HCl) cluster employs a service running on a corresponding node to monitor one or more parameters associated with event notifications sent to a cluster. The service may adjust a node's notification interval based on the monitored parameters. The parameters may include a last event notification successful (LENS) parameter indicating whether a recent notification was successful and a severity parameter determined based on an urgency type of a plurality of pending notifications within an event queue. The service may employ a first formula to decrease the notification interval following a successful previous notification and a second formula to increase the notification interval following an unsuccessful notification. The magnitude by which the notification interval is adjusted may be influenced by the severity parameter, e.g., to aggressively reduce the notification interval following successful notifications when urgency is high.

Self-adaptive event notification frequency for nodes in a hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) cluster

Disclosed methods respond to detecting the receipt, by a management controller, such as a baseboard management controller (BMC), of an information handling system, of a provisioning request from a management client, by rebooting the information handling system to initiate a Universal Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) boot sequence that is configured to load an EFI application, referred to herein a provisioning application. A two way communication channel such as a WebSocket is established between the management client and the management controller to stream OS image data corresponding to an OS image to the management controller. The OS image data streamed to the management controller is written to an OS image partition of a boot device, after which the stored OS image may be booted to load the OS. The provisioning request may be communicated as a representational state transfer (REST) compliant (RESTful) request using, in at least some deployments, a Redfish application programming interface (API).

Sideband bare metal provisioning

An information handling system may include a host information handling system that is configured to execute a host operating system (OS), a management controller configured to provide out-of-band management of the information handling system, a cryptoprocessor, and a dual-port random-access memory (RAM). The information handling system may be configured to: generate, at the cryptoprocessor, a cryptographic key pair comprising a public key and a private key; transmit a token from the cryptoprocessor to the host information handling system, wherein the token is signed with the private key; transmit the public key from the cryptoprocessor to the dual-port RAM; transmit the public key from the dual-port RAM to the management controller; and based on a verification of the token with the public key, grant access to the management controller from the host OS.

Secure communication channel for OS access to management controller

An information handling system may include at least one processor; and a non-transitory memory coupled to the at least one processor. The information handling system may be configured to upgrade a plurality of hosts of an information handling system cluster by: receiving information regarding fault domains of the cluster, such that each host of the plurality of hosts is a member of exactly one fault domain; and for each fault domain: causing all hosts of the fault domain to enter a protect mode in which new virtual machines cannot be created or accepted for migration; causing hosts to enter a maintenance mode in which any existing virtual machines are migrated away from the hosts; and causing the hosts to perform the upgrade, wherein a plurality of hosts are configured to perform the upgrade simultaneously.

Pipeline rolling update

A disclosed method for managing a multi-node, HCI cluster provisions a central manager of the HCI cluster with an event listening service. The service is then registered with an agent in each HCI node. The service, when triggered by a management network configuration event, causes the agent to modify a management network configuration of the node in accordance with the event. Disclosed methods may respond to successfully applying a management network configuration change by sending a success notification to the central manager and awaiting a confirmation from the central manager. If confirmation is not received within a timeout interval, a timeout occurs and the management network configuration is rolled back to a last known good configuration. If the configuration change cannot be successfully applied, a failure notification is sent to the central manager and the configuration of the node is rolled back to a last known good configuration.

Event notification mechanism for migrating management network of a cluster node of a hyper converged infrastructure (HCI) appliance

An information handling system and method for managing event messages in a distributed computing environment employing a hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) architecture in which a central controller is configured to send heartbeats, indicative of a message handling capacity of the central controller, to a plurality of nodes within a management domain of the controller. Each node maintains an event messaging state of the central controller based on the heartbeats. When a node detects the occurrence of a reportable event, the node determines a reporting policy corresponding to the event messaging state of the central controller and takes an event message action in accordance with the reporting policy. The event message action may include sending the event message without delay or storing the event message for subsequent sending.

Event message management in hyper-converged infrastructure environment

An information handling system may include a host system having an initial operating system image deployed thereon; and a management controller configured to provide out-of-band management of the information handling system. The management controller may be further configured to: receive, via a secure management network, a request to configure a plurality of operating system settings; transmit, to an initial agent executing on the operating system, one or more instructions to configure the plurality of operating system settings in accordance with the request; and after the configuration of the plurality of operating system settings, allow a user to log in to the operating system via a non-secure data network.

Growing community of inventors

Shanghai, China

Lixia Hu