Automated Software Upgrade And Distribution

• US 20090089775A1
• Filed: 09/02/2008
• Published: 04/02/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 09/27/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Viavi Solutions, Inc. (Lumentum Holdings Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Acterna LLC (Lumentum Holdings Inc.)
• Inventors: Zusman, Mark
• Granted Patent: US 8,250,566 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/173
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/65 Updates security arrangements therefor G06F21/57
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2203/554 Data synchronization

Abstract

A method for an automated upgrade of hardware devices of a specialized network, such as wireless communication devices or automated teller machines, with new software programs is described. The upgrade is performed over the network and is controlled by a control center of the network. The control center has an access to a software program repository for storing new programs. The automated upgrade is performed by selecting suitable new software programs from the repository, each of the programs being associated with a validity time window and a threshold hardware profile, performing corresponding checks of upgrade time windows and hardware profiles of the hardware devices being upgraded, and downloading the new software programs to the memory medium of the hardware devices being upgraded.

Claims

1. A method for upgrading a hardware device (HD) with a software program (SP), wherein the HD has a storage medium for storing the SP, and wherein the HD is a part of an HD network that includes a plurality of HDs and a control center having:

an HD information database including a plurality of HD records corresponding to the HDs of the network, wherein each HD record contains a hardware profile, a revision of a presently stored SP, an “

upgrade-mode”

flag, and a “

software out-of-date”

indicator, wherein said hardware profile contains a model, a vendor, and a hardware revision; and

an SP repository for storing SPs, wherein the SP repository includes a plurality of SP records, wherein each SP record contains an SP, a revision of said SP, a validity time window of said SP, and a threshold hardware profile of an HD compatible with said SP, wherein said threshold hardware profile contains a model, a vendor, and a hardware revision;

wherein the method comprises the steps of;

(a) determining that the HD is eligible for an automatic upgrade, in dependence upon a state of the “

upgrade-mode”

flag stored in a corresponding HD record of the HD information database;

(b) selecting the SP to upgrade the HD with, by;

i) selecting at least one SP record within the SP repository, having the model and the vendor of its threshold hardware profile matched to the model and the vendor, respectively, of the HD record corresponding to the HD being upgraded;

ii) out of those selected in i), if any, selecting at least one SP record having the hardware revision of the respective threshold hardware profile, which is earlier than the hardware revision of the HD record corresponding to the HD being upgraded;

iii) out of those selected in ii), if any, selecting the record with the latest SP revision;

iv) determining that that the SP revision of the record selected in iii) is later than the revision of the presently stored SP of the HD record corresponding to the HD being upgraded; and

v) selecting the SP of the SP record selected in iii) as the SP to upgrade the HD with;

(c) determining that the current time is within a time window when an upgrade is allowed;

(d) determining that the HD is in a state that is appropriate for an upgrade to be performed;

(e) upon completion of steps (a) through (d), downloading the SP selected in step (b) to the storage medium of the HD.

2. A method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of

(f) determining if the SP has been successfully downloaded to the storage medium of the HD, and

(g) if the SP has not been successfully downloaded, doing one of, or both of, the following:

assigning a value to the “

upgrade mode”

flag disallowing an automatic upgrade; and

bringing the “

software out-of-date”

indicator to a state indicating that the SP, stored in the storage medium of the HD, is out of date.

3. A method of claim 2, wherein:

step (g) is performed by the control center;

step (f) is performed by the HD; and

step (f) further includes sending a confirmation message from the HD to the control center over the HD network, if the downloading was successful.

4. A method of claim 1, wherein step (a) further comprises a conditional step of

(a1) determining that the state of the “

software out-of-date”

indicator stored in the corresponding HD record indicates that the SP stored in the storage medium of the HD is out of date,

wherein the conditional step (a1) is performed only if the state of the “

upgrade-mode”

flag indicates that the step (a1) needs to be performed.

5. A method of claim 4, wherein the “

software out-of-date”

indicator of each HD record of the HD information database comprises a “

software out-of-date”

alarm having two states;

“

software is out of date” and

“

software is up to date”

.

6. A method of claim 1, wherein steps (a) to (e) are performed by the control center.

7. A method of claim 6, wherein the HD can only be upgraded during a service time window corresponding to the HD, and wherein the time window when the upgrade is allowed is within the service time window of the HD.

8. A method of claim 6, wherein step (d) is performed by sending a request from the control center to the HD over the HD network, and receiving a message from the HD to the control center over the HD network, wherein the message confirms that the HD is in a state that is appropriate for an upgrade to be performed.

9. A method of claim 6, further comprising repeating steps (a) to (e) at predetermined time intervals.

10. A method of claim 6, further comprising performing steps (a) to (e) for every HD having a corresponding HD record in the HD information database.

11. A method of claim 6, wherein step (b) is performed by querying the software repository with input data containing the vendor of the HD being upgraded, the model of the HD being upgraded, the hardware revision of the HD being upgraded, and the current SP revision of an SP stored in the storage medium of the HD being upgraded.

12. A method of claim 11, wherein the time window when the upgrade is allowed is within the validity time window of the SP record corresponding to the SP selected at step (b).

13. A method of claim 11, wherein the HD can only be upgraded during a service time window corresponding to the HD, and wherein the time window when the upgrade is allowed is within the service time window of the HD and within the validity time window of the SP record corresponding to the SP selected at step (b).

14. A HD network comprising a plurality of HDs and a control center, which, in operation, upgrades the HDs of the network with an SP according to the method of claim 1.

15. A HD network of claim 14, wherein the HDs have a flash memory, and wherein the SP is stored in said flash memory as the result of the upgrade.

16. A HD network of claim 14, wherein the HD network is selected from a group consisting of:

a wireless communications network;

an automated teller machines network;

a digital subscriber line modem network;

a digital cable television network; and

a fiberoptic network.

17. A HD network of claim 14, wherein the SP supports a functionality available to a selected sub-group of the HDs of the network, and

wherein said functionality was unavailable before the upgrade.

18. A HD network of claim 17, wherein said sub-group is selected by comparing hardware profiles of the HDs of the network to a threshold hardware profile associated with the SP.

19. A computer-readable medium whose contents cause a control center of an HD network comprising a plurality of HDs to perform an automatic upgrade of the HDs according to a method of claim 1.

20. A computer-readable medium of claim 19, wherein the HD network is selected from a group consisting of:

a wireless communications network;

an automated teller machines network;

a digital subscriber line modem network;

a digital cable television network; and

a fiberoptic network.