Provisioning for a modular server

• US 20040260936A1
• Filed: 06/18/2003
• Published: 12/23/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 06/18/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Tahoe Research Limited (f/k/a Learndale Limited) (Vector Capital Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Bulusu, Mallik, Hiray, Sandip M.
• Granted Patent: US 7,440,998 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 726/16
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1417 Boot up procedures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4405 Initialisation of multiprocessor systems

Abstract

A modular server includes a computer system having dedicated resources and a BIOS configuration agent, blades and a backplane connecting the computer system to the blades.

Claims

1. A modular server comprising;

a computer system including dedicated resources and a BIOS personality configuration agent;

blades; and

a backplane connecting the computer system to the blades.

2. The server of claim 1 in which the BIOS personality configuration agent is a provisioning agent.

3. The server of claim 2 in which the provisioning agent comprises a code area and a data area.

4. The server of claim 3 in which the data area comprises BIOS personality information associated with each of the blades.

5. The server of claim 4 in which the BIOS personality information includes boot order information.

6. The server of claim 4 in which the BIOS personality information includes enabled and disabled features.

7. The server of claim 4 in which the BIOS personality information includes allocation of resource information.

8. The server of claim 4 in which the BIOS personality information includes authentication and authorization information.

9. The server of claim 4 in which the data area further comprises configuration information.

10. The server of claim 9 in which the configuration information comprises blade personality updates.

11. The server of claim 9 in which the configuration information comprises version information.

12. The server of claim 4 in which the data area further comprises stock keeping unit (SKU) information.

13. The server of claim 12 in which the SKU information comprises mappings of blade BIOS personalities to blades.

14. A method comprising:

in a modular server having blades, sending a request for a blade basic input output system (BIOS) personality update for a blade to a blade BIOS configuration agent; and

scheduling the BIOS personality update in the blade.

15. The method of claim 14 further comprising executing the BIOS personality update in the blade.

16. The method of claim 14 in which the blade BIOS configuration agent is a blade BIOS personality provisioning agent.

17. The method of claim 16 in which the provisioning agent comprises a code area and a data area.

18. The method of claim 17 in which the data area comprises BIOS personality information associated with the blade.

19. The method of claim 18 in which the BIOS personality information includes boot order information.

20. The method of claim 18 in which the BIOS personality information includes enabled and disabled features.

21. The method of claim 18 in which the BIOS personality information includes resource allocation information.

22. The method of claim 18 in which the BIOS personality information includes authorization information.

23. The method of claim 17 in which the data area comprises blade BIOS configuration information.

24. The method of claim 23 in which the BIOS configuration information comprises BIOS personality update information.

25. The method of claim 23 in which the BIOS configuration information comprises version information.

26. The method of claim 17 in which the data area comprises stock keeping unit (SKU) information.

27. The method of claim 26 in which the SKU information maps a blade BIOS personality to the blade.

28. The method of claim 14 in which scheduling further comprises determining whether a planned BIOS personality update is scheduled.

29. A computer program product, tangibly embodied in an information carrier, for managing blade personalities in a modular server, the computer program product being operable to cause data processing apparatus to:

send a request for a blade BIOS personality update to a BIOS configuration agent; and

schedule the BIOS personality update in the blade.

30. The product of claim 29 further comprising the data processing apparatus to:

execute the BIOS personality update in the blade.