International Business Machines Corporation

Paul Brian Tippett

Gregory Richard Hintermeister

Randal Lee Bertram

Geraint M North

Simon C Chu

William W Buchanan, Jr

David Michael Green

Karl Ross Shultz

Su Liu

Richard Alan Dayan

Michael S Ly

Peter Thomas Donovan

Jorge D Rodriguez

William Paul Zeggert

John Michael Brantly

Peter Gerard Chin

Timothy J Green

Akram Abboud

Thomas William Lange

Fred Allison Bower, Iii

William Gabriel Pagan

William Joseph Piazza

Gregory Brian Pruett

Alessandro Sorniotti

Michael H Nolterieke

Gari Singh

Jason Karl Yellick

Andrew Hamilton Wray

Mihir Rohit Shah

Jeffrey Wayne Anderson

Frank Cassatt Harwood

Dhyey Shah

Ratnakar Asara

Tam Stangler

Linda A Rledle

Travis Daren Appleman

An approach for managing workload deployment, specifically, restarting workloads that are interdependent is provided. The approach includes a mechanism by which a group of interdependent workloads in a cloud infrastructure environment can be restarted sequentially. Interdependent workloads simply mean workloads that depend on each other in some way such that if one goes down, then the cloud infrastructure environment can experience downtime. The workloads can be of the same or different types. Additionally, this mechanism can be scaled such that groups of workloads can be restarted simultaneously. Furthermore, the approach can accommodate cloud infrastructure environments with multiple types of workloads, and it allows for groups of workloads to be restarted simultaneously while also allowing the workloads within each group to be restarted sequentially.

Sequentially restarting independent workloads across distributed cloud environment

A node in a blockchain network may generate a configuration override for the blockchain network, approve the configuration override by the blockchain network, transmit the approval for the configuration override to peers in the blockchain network, and submit the configuration override to the blockchain network for validation. The validation will be based on the configuration override matching the approval.

Configuration override in a blockchain network

The present disclosure relates to brokering requests for cloud computing resources between a user and multiple infrastructure providers. According to one embodiment, an infrastructure manager acting as a broker receives a template including configuration information for one or more servers. For each of the plurality of infrastructure providers, the infrastructure manager generates an infrastructure provider-specific specification based on the generic template, transmits the provider-specific specification file to the infrastructure provider, and receives information from the infrastructure provider indicating whether the configuration is valid. The infrastructure receives a selection of one or more of the plurality of infrastructure providers to provision the one or more servers and requests the provisioning of the servers from the selected one or more of the plurality of infrastructure providers. The requests generally use the provider-specific specification files for the selected one or more of the plurality of infrastructure providers.

Cloud system order and configuration using customized templates

Method to display the status of tags applied to objects in a cloud computing environment, by comparing an attribute of an object to a criterion of a tag applied to the object, wherein the object is part of the cloud computing environment, and outputting for display a graphical representation of the tag, wherein the graphical representation comprises a text of the tag and an indication of a result of the comparison.

Enabling a tag to show status

Systems, methods, and computer program products to tag objects in a cloud computing environment, by tagging an object with a first tag, of a plurality of tags, wherein each of the plurality of tags specifies a respective criterion for objects tagged by each tag, and upon determining that the object not satisfy the criterion of the first tag, performing an action associated with the first tag to modify the object to meet the criterion of the first tag.

Performing actions on objects as a result of applying tags to the objects

Methods to tag objects in a cloud computing environment, by tagging an object with a first tag, of a plurality of tags, wherein each of the plurality of tags specifies a respective criterion for objects tagged by each tag, and upon determining that the object not satisfy the criterion of the first tag, performing an action associated with the first tag to modify the object to meet the criterion of the first tag.

System, method, and computer program product to display the status of tags applied to objects in a cloud computing environment, by comparing an attribute of an object to a criterion of a tag applied to the object, wherein the object is part of the cloud computing environment, and outputting for display a graphical representation of the tag, wherein the graphical representation comprises a text of the tag and an indication of a result of the comparison.

Managing firmware in a computing system storing a plurality of different firmware images for the same firmware includes: calculating, for each firmware image in dependence upon a plurality of predefined factors, a preference score; responsive to a failure of a particular firmware image, selecting a firmware image having a highest preference score; and failing over to the selected firmware image.

Firmware management in a computing system

Secondary or augmented control of a storage array in a cost effective manner is accomplished by connecting a host to the storage array via a storage adapter independent of a RAID controller. The RAID controller provides primary control for services standard to the RAID controller. Augmented or enhanced services as well as backup control are provided by a control module executing on the host, communicating to one or more selected storage devices within the storage array via the storage adapter. In one embodiment, the control module detects faults or failures in the RAID controller, selectably directs storage commands to the RAID controller, emulates a storage controller including a RAID controller, and provides enhanced or augmented services such as conducting diagnostic, firmware update, or disaster recovery operations.

Apparatus method and system for alternate control of a RAID array

A method, system and computer program product for dynamically sharing a limited supply of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses among a larger number of servers. A manager coupled between the Internet and a plurality of servers may receive a request for an IP address associated with a domain name from a client coupled to the Internet. The manager may be configured to map the domain name into an IP address assigned to the server hosting the web site of the domain name. Each assigned IP address may be valid only for a limited time. Once the time the assigned IP address is valid has expired, the assigned IP address may be returned to the pool of available IP addresses thereby allowing a smaller number of IP addresses to be dynamically shared among a larger number of servers.

Dynamically sharing a pool of IP addresses

Disclosed is a method for automatically re-provisioning an appliance server without significant user-interaction. The disk drive of a server to be utilized as an appliance server is partitioned into at least three partitions, including a systems partition, a network operating system partition, and an images partition. A re-provisioning utility is provided, which, when activated by a user, removes the present application from the server and forwards it to a storage location on the network or in a fourth storage partition and installs another application on the server. The system is re-booted and re-configured to provide full operation of the new application.

Automatic appliance server re-provision/re-purposing method

Disclosed is a method and hard disk configuration for accommodating different sizes of applications during an automatic re-provisioning of an appliance server. The disk drive of the appliance server is partitioned with a system partition, a network operating system (NOS) partition, a float partition, and an images partition. The float partition is utilized to provide additional space to the NOS partition and the images partition, when required. A re-provisioning utility is provided, which initiates both a create image utility and an apply image utility, whereby an image file of a current application and associated operating system is created and a stored image file of a second application is installed on the appliance server. When the apply image utility is initiated, the NOS partition is dynamically extended into the float partition server if the second application requires more space than is provided in the NOS partition. Similarly, when an image file is stored in the images partition and the image file requires more space than is available in the images partition, the images partition is dynamically extended into the float partition.

Growing community of inventors

Durham, NC, United States of America

Paul Brian Tippett