Systems and Methods for Provisioning Homogeneous Servers

• US 20080120403A1
• Filed: 11/22/2006
• Published: 05/22/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 11/22/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Dell Products LP (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Dell Products LP (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Schroeder, Brent, Collins, Mark Andrew, Lowery, James Craig
• Application Number:
  US11/562,921
• Publication Number:
  US 20080120403A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/63 Image based installation; Cloning; Build to order
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1097 for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS]

Abstract

The present disclosure relates to a system for provisioning homogeneous servers comprising an image repository coupled to a plurality of servers through an internet protocol (IP) networks wherein the image repository comprises a base virtual disk file. The system may further comprise a logical virtual disk file instance for each of the servers which created a least one change to the base virtual disk file.

Claims

1. A system for provisioning homogeneous servers, comprising:

an image repository coupled to a plurality of servers through an internet protocol (IP) network, wherein the image repository comprises a base virtual disk file, and

a logical virtual disk file instance for each of the servers which created a least one change to the base virtual disk file.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein a virtual disk file of each server is a composite of the base virtual disk file and a block of change is created by said server.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the block is replicated with a copy on write procedure.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein each server is configured with a unique iSCSI target LUN, which it then boots.

5. The system of claim 2, wherein each virtual disk file is associated with a unique target LUN and published to the IP network.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the iSCSI boot solution is an iSCSI HBA.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the iSCSI boot solution is a combination of iSCSI-aware NIC, OS, and BIOS.

8. The system of claim 4, wherein the servers are manually configured with iSCSI boot LUN information.

9. The system of claim 4, wherein the servers are configured with iSCSI boot LUN information with a directory-aware boot firmware which can query a LDAP directory to retrieve LUN assignments placed there by the same management software that created the iSCSI target LUNS.

10. A system for provisioning homogeneous servers, comprising:

a plurality of homogeneous servers, each server having a diskless iSCSI boot solution and LUN;

an image repository coupled to the servers through an iP network, wherein the image repository comprises a base virtual disk file; and

a logical virtual disk file instance for each of the servers which created a least one change to the base virtual disk file.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the iSCSI boot solution is an iSCSI HBA.

13. The system of claim 10, wherein the servers are manually configured with iSCSI boot LUN information.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein the servers are configured with iSCSI boot LUN information with a directory-aware boot firmware which can query a LDAP directory to retrieve LUN assignments placed there by the same management software that created the iSCSI target LUNS.

12. The system of claim 110, wherein the iSCSI boot solution is a combination of iSCSI-aware NIC, OS, and BIOS.

15. A method of provisioning homogeneous target servers with virtual disks files, comprising the steps of:

providing access for a plurality of servers to access a base virtual disk file; and

providing a logical instance for each of the plurality of servers to make a change to the base virtual disk file.

16. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

assigning each virtual disk file with a unique target LUN; and

publishing the unique target LUNS to an IP network;

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising;

manually configuring the servers with iSCSI boot LUN information.

18. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

configuring the servers with iSCSI boot LUN information using a directory-aware boot firmware which can query an LDAP directory to retrieve LUN assignments placed there by the same management software that created the target LUNS.