Preventing disturbance induced failure in a computer system

• US 9,043,657 B2
• Filed: 11/30/2012
• Issued: 05/26/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 11/28/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Tsfasman, Arkadiy O., Notohardjono, Budy D
• Primary Examiner(s): MASKULINSKI, MICHAEL C
• Application Number:
  US13/689,836
• Publication Number:
  US 20130138994A1
• Time in Patent Office: 907 Days
• Field of Search: 714/47.2
• US Class Current: 714/47.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/20 Cooling means
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/206 comprising thermal management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0751 Error or fault detection not based on redundancy power supply failures G06F1/30; network fault management H04L41/06
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0793 Remedial or corrective actions recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40

Abstract

A method to prevent failure on a server computer due to internally and/or externally induced shock and/or vibration. The method includes acquiring, by at least one sensor, analog acceleration data of components in a server computer. The data is then converted to digital format and stored within a motor drive assembly processor memory unit. The processor analyzes the stored data for existence of machine degradation. In response to detecting the existence of machine degradation, the motor drive assembly processor initiates remediation procedures. The remediation procedures include controlling rotating speed of moving devices or performing a complete system shut down.

Claims

1. A method to prevent failure on a server computer, comprising:

acquiring, by at least one of a plurality of sensors, analog acceleration data of at least one component in the server computer;

converting, by a motor drive assembly, the analog acceleration data to digital acceleration data, the at least one component being controlled by and connected to the motor drive assembly;

analyzing, by the motor drive assembly, the digital acceleration data to detect an existence of performance degradation; and

in response to detecting the existence of the performance degradation, performing, by the motor drive assembly, at least one of a plurality of remediation procedures.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one of the plurality of sensors comprise a tri-axial accelerometer imbedded in the motor drive assembly of rotating components within the server computer.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the performing of the at least one of the plurality of remediation procedures comprises selecting at least one procedure based on a periodic comparison from a group comprising a shutdown procedure, a slowdown procedure, a speedup procedure, a shutoff procedure, and a sending procedure,

wherein the shutdown procedure causes a shutdown of the server computer;

and

wherein the slowdown procedure causes a slowdown of at least one of a plurality of moving components of the server computer;

wherein the speedup procedure causes a speed up of the at least one of the plurality of moving components;

wherein the shutoff procedure causes a shut off of the at least one of the plurality of moving components; and

wherein the sending procedure causes a sending of a machine status notification to a recipient.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the existence of the performance degradation relates to a shock disturbance.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the existence of the performance degradation relates to a vibration disturbance.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the existence of the performance degradation relates to a seismic event disturbance.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

enabling, by a shake and monitoring vibration tool, a query of the digital acceleration data for vibrational data, the motor drive assembly being connected to the shake and monitoring vibration tool of a support element of the server computer; and

causing, by the shake and monitoring vibration tool, a response to the query to be logged for further analysis, the response including set time intervals.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the analyzing, by the motor drive assembly, the digital acceleration to detect the existence of the performance degradation comprises:

analyzing the digital acceleration data in a frequency domain of a fast Fourier transform by utilizing a periodic comparison between the digital acceleration data and a known operation condition to detect the existence of the performance degradation.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of remediation procedures being applied to the at least one component based on a periodic comparison.