Dell Products Inc.

Alcatel Lucent

Zhuo Zhang

Lixia Hu

Kai Zhou

Zheng Zhang

Tianhe Li

Qian Yang

Yu Wang

Yan Sun

YungChin Fang

Zhang Flag

Niannian Xia

Xiangdong Huang

Neil Tang

Changlin Li

Xiaobo Jia

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 system including at least one processor, a host physical storage resource, a network interface, and a control circuit. The network interface may be configured to, in response to the host system being powered down: transmit one or more signals to the control circuit, wherein the one or more signals are configured to cause the control circuit to supply power and data connectivity from the network interface to the host physical storage resource; and provide access to the host physical storage resource from a remote network information handling system while the host system is powered down.

Smart network interface controller host storage access

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 apparatus comprises at least one processing device comprising a processor coupled to a memory and a drive bay enclosure of a storage system comprising a housing with one or more drive bays, the housing of the drive bay enclosure comprising one or more status indicators proximate an opening for at least a given one of the one or more drive bays. The at least one processing device is configured to perform steps of determining status information for the given drive bay, and controlling the one or more status indicators proximate the opening for the given drive bay based at least in part on the determined status information.

Controlling status indicators for drive bays of a drive bay enclosure of a storage system

An information handling system may include at least one processor; a network interface; and a physical storage resource including a flash translation layer (FTL) operable to provide a mapping between logical storage addresses and physical storage addresses. The information handling system may be configured to: receive a request for a snapshot; for used portions of the physical storage resource, change a metadata identifier from a used status to a snapshot status; prevent deletion of those portions associated with the snapshot status; and transmit, via the network interface, information associated with the portions that are associated with the snapshot status.

Snapshots with smart network interface 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

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 at least one processor; a first and a second backplane, wherein the first and second backplanes are Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) backplanes; and a physical storage resource. The physical storage resource may be coupled to the at least one processor via a first port of the physical storage resource and via the first backplane, and the physical storage resource may be further coupled to the at least one processor via a second port of the physical storage resource and via the second backplane.

Dual-tree backplane

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.

Server initial configuration via out-of-band channel

The present invention provides a method for handling a call conflict at a call processing apparatus in a communication network, said call processing apparatus comprising a first call processing element which handles a first call initiated by a first terminal and a second call processing element which handles a second call initiated by a second terminal, when said second call processing element receives an incall message initiated by said first terminal and directed to communicate with said second terminal while said second terminal is in busy state, the method comprising: inquiring the called number in the call record of said second terminal; comparing initiating times of said first call and said second call, if said called number in said call record of said second terminal is the number of said first terminal contained in said incall message; and releasing the call with later initiating time and continuing setting up of the call with earlier initiating time, based on result of the comparison. Corresponding call processing apparatus and program product are also disclosed.

Growing community of inventors

Shanghai, China

Zhuo Zhang