Method and apparatus for in-band discovery of capabilities of managed devices

• US 20080098321A1
• Filed: 10/19/2006
• Published: 04/24/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 10/19/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Krithivas, Ramamurthy
• Application Number:
  US11/584,459
• Publication Number:
  US 20080098321A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/771
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/046 comprising network management agents or mobile agents therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/12 Discovery or management of network topologies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/34 Signalling channels for network management communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/344 Out-of-band transfers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services

Abstract

An in-band mechanism for discovery of device management capabilities is provided. The in-band discovery mechanism is similar to an out-of-band discovery mechanism and uses a non-proprietary mechanism. A management provider may query the management capabilities of devices and may register devices that may only be managed in-band with a directory agent.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising:

a management provider to retrieve manageability capabilities of a managed device included in data returned in response to an in-band device capabilities discovery command issued to the managed device.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the management provider to perform in-band management of the managed device using the retrieved manageability capabilities.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the manageability capabilities are service location protocol (SLP) formatted attributes.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the in-band device capabilities discovery command is a Small Computer Systems Interface (SCSI) Inquiry command.

5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the manageability capabilities are stored in a vendor specific field of the SCSI Inquiry command response data.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the manageability attributes include a logical unit number for sending in-band management commands.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the manageability attributes include a type of encoding supported.

8. A method comprising:

retrieving manageability capabilities of a managed device included in data returned in response to an in-band device capabilities discovery command.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

performing in-band management of the managed device using the retrieved manageability capabilities.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the manageability capabilities are service location protocol (SLP) formatted attributes.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the in-band device capabilities discovery command is a Small Computer Systems Interface (SCSI) Inquiry command.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the manageability capabilities are stored in a vendor specific field of the SCSI Inquiry command response data.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein the manageability attributes include a logical unit number for sending in-band management commands.

14. The method of claim 8, wherein the manageability attributes include a type of encoding supported.

15. An article including a machine-accessible medium having associated information, wherein the information, when accessed, results in a machine performing:

retrieving manageability capabilities of a managed device included in data returned in response to an in-band device capabilities discovery command.

16. The article of claim 15, further comprising:

performing in-band management of the managed device using the retrieved manageability capabilities.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the manageability capabilities are service location protocol (SLP) formatted attributes.

18. A system comprising:

a hard disk drive having a Serial Attached Small Computer System Interface (SAS) interface; and

a management provider to retrieve manageability capabilities of the hard disk drive included in data returned in response to an in-band device capabilities discovery command issued to the hard disk drive.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the management provider to perform in-band management of the hard disk drive using the retrieved manageability capabilities.

20. The system of claim 18, wherein the manageability capabilities are service location protocol (SLP) formatted attributes.