Methods and apparatus for issuing updates to multiple management entities

• US 7,640,325 B1
• Filed: 07/09/1999
• Issued: 12/29/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 07/09/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: NetApp, Inc.
• Original Assignee: LSI Corporation (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: DeKoning, Rodney A., Markus, Matthew A., Courtright, William V. II, Jantz, Ray M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Boutah; Alina N.
• Application Number:
  US09/350,742
• Time in Patent Office: 3,826 Days
• Field of Search: 709/223, 709/201, 709/203, 709/224, 709/248, 710/18, 710/8, 713/100
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2206/1008 Graphical user interface [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0605 by facilitating the interaction with a user or administrator
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0632 by initialisation or re-initialisation of storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/022 Multivendor or multi-standard integration
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0253 using browsers or web-pages for accessing management information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/082 the condition being updates or upgrades of network functionality
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0823 characterised by the purposes of a change of settings, e.g. optimising configuration for enhancing reliability for optimising operational conditions of wireless networks H04W24/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/22 comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]

Abstract

A system for updating management entities or devices in a computer system network with configuration change information from the devices being managed. The management entities are configured to discover, monitor and configure managed devices, such as storage systems, connected to the network. Preferably, the managed devices include a comparator which can track changes made to the managed device configuration or properties and report that change back to the various management entities. In this way, the management entities can keep track of the configurations of the various devices that they manage, even though they might not be responsible for issuing the configuration change. This can be accomplished even when managed devices developed by different manufacturers according to different standards or protocols are involved.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

one or more managed devices having one or more established configurations;

one or more management devices capable of interfacing with the one or more managed devices;

one or more comparators capable of determining that one or more established configurations of the one or more managed devices have changed;

one or more notification modules of the one or more managed devices capable of reporting one or more changes from the one or more established configurations of the one or more managed devices to one or more management devices by communicating one or more call-back deltas to the one or more management devices, said one or more call-back deltas comprising information identifying the change from the established configuration; and

one or more update modules of the one or more management devices including one or more object graphs representing a configuration of the managed device including the one more callback deltas.

2. The system as described in claim 1, wherein the one or more notification modules are configured to update the one or more management devices with new information after the one or more management devices have moved on to another one or more other tasks.

3. A method of updating a management device, comprising:

configuring one or more managed devices in one or more established configurations;

changing the one or more established configurations of the one or more managed devices to one or more different configurations;

providing one or more management devices one or more object graphs including one or more properties of the one or more managed devices; and

updating the one or more object graphs with update information including one or more callback deltas having information identifying the one or more changes from the one or more established configurations.

4. The method of updating a management device as described in claim 3, wherein the update information comprises a new object graph.

5. The method of updating a management device as described in claim 3, further comprising the step of

optimizing state information transfers from the one or more managed devices to the one or more management devices.

6. The method of updating a management device as described in claim 3, further comprising the steps of:

sending one or more configuration change commands from one or more management devices to the one or more managed devices;

having the one or more management devices that issued the one or more configuration change commands move on to an one or more additional tasks; and

notifying the one or more management devices that issued the one or more configuration change commands that the one or more configuration changes have occurred after the one or more management devices that issued the one or more configuration changes have moved on to the one or more additional tasks.

7. The method of updating a management device as described in claim 3, further comprising the step of initiating one or more event notification sessions for one or more management devices such that the one or more management devices can receive one or more configuration changes of the one or more managed devices.

8. The method of updating a management device as described in claim 3, further comprising the step of displaying one or more object graphs of the one or more managed devices.

9. The method of updating a management device as described in claim 3, further comprising the step of issuing one or more commands to the one or more managed devices so as to change the established configuration of the managed device.

10. The method of updating a management device as described in claim 9, wherein the one or more commands issued to the one or more managed devices comprises one or more volume creation commands.

11. The method of updating a management device as described in claim 9, wherein the one or more commands issued to the one or more managed devices comprises an one or more error recovery commands.

12. The method of updating a management device as described in claim 3, further comprising:

sending a configuration change command from management device of the one or more management devices to the one or more managed devices; and

notifying at least one additional management device other than the management device that sent the configuration change of the configuration change.

13. The method of updating a management device as described in claim 12, wherein the managed device initiates the notifying of the at least one additional management device.