Remote diagnostics system

• US 7,225,245 B2
• Filed: 08/09/2001
• Issued: 05/29/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 08/09/2001
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Gurumoorthy, Nagasubramanian, Yanez, Raul, Galindo, Javier A., Sullivan, Mark J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Jaroenchonwanit; Bunjob
• Assistant Examiner(s): LEE, PHILIP C
• Application Number:
  US09/927,224
• Publication Number:
  US 20030033397A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,119 Days
• Field of Search: 714/27, 714/25, 709/224, 709/223, 707/202, 713/202, 713/2
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/046 comprising network management agents or mobile agents therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/50 Testing arrangements

Abstract

Disclosed are a system and method of remotely providing diagnostic procedures to a processing system. Upon being launched on a processing system, an agent process may receive data to provide one or more diagnostic procedures from a data network coupled to the processing system. One or more of the diagnostic procedures may then be executed to provide diagnostic results.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

launching a diagnostic agent process at a host processing system upon boot-up of the host processing system;

transmitting a hardware version associated with the diagnostic agent process from the diagnostic agent process to a diagnostic server;

receiving data from the diagnostic server at the host processing system via a data network to provide one or more diagnostic procedures for the diagnostic agent process, wherein the diagnostic server is a centralized repository for the diagnostic procedures, and wherein the one or more diagnostic procedures are selected based on the hardware version;

upon receipt of the one or more diagnostic procedures, automatically executing the one or more diagnostic procedures on the host processing system using a firmware interface to provide one or more diagnostic results;

receiving updated diagnostic procedures from the diagnostic server to maintain synchronization of the diagnostic agent process with current diagnostic procedures; and

transmitting the one or more diagnostic results to the diagnostic server.

2. The method of claim 1, the method further comprising:

formatting the diagnostic results for transmission.

3. The method of claim 2, the method further comprising formatting the diagnostic results according to an extensible markup language (XML).

4. The method of claim 1, the method further comprising transmitting a message requesting the one or more diagnostic procedures through the data network in response to launching the diagnostic agent process on the host processing system.

5. The method of claim 1, the method further comprising transmitting a request for the data to provide one or more diagnostic procedures through the data network in response to launching the diagnostic agent process.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the diagnostic agent process is launched natively at firmware included in the host processing system.

6. An article comprising:

a storage medium comprising machine-readable instructions stored thereon for;

launching a diagnostic agent process at a host processing system upon boot-up of the host processing system;

transmitting a hardware version associated with the diagnostic agent process from the diagnostic agent process to a diagnostic server;

receiving data from the diagnostic server at the host processing system via a data network to provide one or more diagnostic procedures for the diagnostic agent process, wherein the diagnostic server is a centralized repository for the diagnostic procedures, and wherein the one or more diagnostic procedures are selected based on the hardware version;

upon receipt of the one or more diagnostic procedures, automatically executing the one or more of diagnostic procedures on the host processing system using a firmware interface to provide one or more diagnostic results;

receiving updated diagnostic procedures from the diagnostic server to maintain synchronization of the diagnostic agent process with current diagnostic procedures; and

transmitting the one or more diagnostic results to the diagnostic serve.

7. The article of claim 6, wherein the storage medium further comprises machine-readable instructions stored thereon for:

formatting the diagnostic results for transmission; and

transmitting the formatted diagnostic results through the data network.

8. The article of claim 7, wherein the storage medium further comprises machine-readable instructions stored thereon for formatting the diagnostic results according to an extensible markup language (XML).

9. The article of claim 6, wherein the storage medium further comprises machine-readable instructions stored thereon for transmitting a message requesting the data to provide one or more diagnostic procedures through the data network in response to launching the diagnostic agent process on the host processing system.

10. The article of claim 6, wherein the storage medium further comprises machine-readable instructions stored thereon for launching a second diagnostic agent process to the processing system, the second diagnostic agent process comprising logic to transmit a request for the data to provide one or more diagnostic procedures through the data network and logic to initiate execution of diagnostic procedures.

17. The article of claim 6, wherein the diagnostic agent process is launched natively at firmware included in the host processing system.

11. A system comprising:

a wireless network;

a diagnostic server coupled to the wireless network the diagnostic server to update diagnostic procedures, and to transmit updated diagnostic procedures to a diagnostic agent process on a host processing system to maintain synchronization of the diagnostic agent process with current diagnostic procedures, wherein the diagnostic server is a centralized repository for the diagnostic procedures; and

the host processing system including at least one central processing unit to execute logics comprising;

logic to launch the diagnostic agent process on the host processing system upon boot-up of the host processing system;

logic to transmit a hardware version associated with the diagnostic agent process from the diagnostic agent process to the diagnostic server;

logic to receive data to provide one or more diagnostic procedures for the diagnostic agent process from the diagnostic server via the wireless network, wherein the one or more diagnostic procedures are selected by the diagnostic server based on the transmitted hardware version;

logic to upon receipt of the one or more diagnostic procedures, automatically execute the one or more diagnostic procedures using a firmware interface to provide one or more diagnostic results; and

logic to transmit the one or more diagnostic results to the diagnostic server.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the processing system further comprises:

logic to format the diagnostic results for transmission; and

logic to transmit the formatted diagnostic results to the destination through the wireless network.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the processing system further comprises logic to format the diagnostic results according to an extensible markup language.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the processing system further comprises logic to transmit a message to the diagnostic server through the wireless network in response to a launch of the diagnostic agent process, the message requesting the data to provide the one or more diagnostic procedures.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein the processing system further comprises logic to transmit a request for the data to provide the one or more diagnostic procedures to the diagnostic server through the wireless network in response to a launch of the diagnostic agent process.

18. The system of claim 11, wherein the diagnostic agent process is launched natively at firmware included in the host processing system.