CONFIGURATION IDENTIFICATION TOOL AND METHODS

• US 20090106459A1
• Filed: 10/17/2007
• Published: 04/23/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/17/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dell Products LP (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Dell Products LP (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Janosky, Brian L., Abels, Timothy
• Granted Patent: US 9,401,846 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 710/10
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/082 the condition being updates or upgrades of network functionality
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0853 by actively collecting configuration information or by backing up configuration information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0859 by keeping history of different configuration generations or by rolling back to previous configuration versions

Abstract

A tool for communicating configuration information includes an analysis tool to determine changes to the configuration of an information handling device. The analysis tool develops a set of configuration tags to identify the configuration changes by identifying a subset of tables or other information, such as XML pairs, associated with a configuration management database (CMDB) and by identifying values for each table to reflect the configuration of the information handling device. The analysis tool encodes the configuration tags into an information string. Because the information string is encoded and does not represent the complete configuration of the information handling system configuration, it can be easily and accurately communicated to a technical support center by a user, thereby reducing potential communication problems and improving technical support.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving encoded information indicating changes to a configuration for an information handling device, the encoded information representing a subset of configuration information categories for the information handling device stored at a configuration management database (CMDB);

decoding the encoded information to produce decoded information;

determining changes to the configuration of the information handling device based on the decoded information.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the decoded information indicates a first set of tables and wherein the first set of tables identifies a subset of tables for the configuration information stored at the CMDB.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the decoded information further indicates a first set of configuration values, each configuration value in the first set of configuration values is associated with a corresponding table in the first set of tables.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein determining changes to the configuration comprising:

determining a first table in the first set of tables is associated with a first configuration item; and

determining the configuration of the first configuration item based upon the configuration value associated with the first table.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the first configuration item represents a version of software or data installed at the computer device.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the first configuration item represents hardware or firmware installed at the computer device.

7. The method of claim 2, wherein the decoded information indicates the first set of tables in a priority order, the priority order based upon a predicted likelihood of error associated with each of the first set of tables.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the CMDB is one of a plurality of CMDBs, and wherein the decoded information automates updates to the CMDB.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising verifying the decoded information based on a checksum value of the decoded information.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the encoded information is received via a device selected from the group consisting of:

a computer chat program, an interactive voice response system, a hand-held computer device, and a web page.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising updating the CMDB based on the decoded information.

12. A method, comprising:

storing, at an information handling device, first information identifying a first change in configuration of the information handling device, the first information representing a first subset of configuration information categories for the information handling device stored at a configuration management database (CMDB);

encoding the first information to produce encoded configuration information; and

displaying the encoded information.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

storing, at the information handling device, second information identifying a second change in configuration of the information handling device, the second information representing a second subset of configuration information for the information handling device stored at the CMDB; and

wherein encoding the first information to produce encoded configuration information comprises encoding the first information and the second information to produce the encoded configuration information.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the encoded configuration information is a compressed representation of the first information and the second information.

15. A computer readable medium embodying a computer program, the computer program comprising instructions to manipulate a processor, the instructions comprising:

instructions to store, at an information handling device, first information identifying a first change in configuration of the information handling device, the first information representing a first subset of configuration information categories for the information handling device stored at a configuration management database (CMDB);

instructions to encode the first information to produce encoded configuration information; and

instructions to display the encoded information.

16. The computer readable medium of claim 15, the instructions further comprising:

instructions to store, at the information handling device, second information identifying a second change in configuration of the information handling device, the second information representing a second subset of configuration information for the information handling device stored at the CMDB; and

wherein the instructions to encode the first information to produce encoded configuration information comprise instructions to encode the first information and the second information to produce the encoded configuration information.

17. The computer readable medium of claim 15, wherein the first information indicates a first set of tables and wherein the first set of tables identifies a subset of tables for the configuration information stored at the CMDB.

18. The computer readable medium of claim 17, wherein the first information further indicates a first set of configuration values, each configuration value in the first set of configuration values is associated with a corresponding table in the first set of tables.

19. The computer readable medium of claim 18, wherein the first information represents a version of software or data installed at the computer device.

20. The computer readable medium of claim 18, wherein the first information represents hardware or firmware installed at the computer device.