Real time examination of conditions of physical machines using augmented reality in smarter data center

• US 9,122,499 B2
• Filed: 06/27/2012
• Issued: 09/01/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 06/27/2012
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Bittner, William K, Funai, Ann M, Winters, Scott L
• Primary Examiner(s): SALL, EL HADJI MALICK
• Application Number:
  US13/534,619
• Publication Number:
  US 20140006590A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,161 Days
• Field of Search: 709201-224, 709/200, 345/629
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3003 Monitoring arrangements specially adapted to the computing system or computing system component being monitored
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3055 Monitoring arrangements for monitoring the status of the computing system or of the computing system component, e.g. monitoring if the computing system is on, off, available, not available error or fault processing without redundancy G06F11/0703; error detection or correction by redundancy in data representation G06F11/08; error detection or correction by redundancy in operation G06F11/14; error detection or correction by redundancy in hardware G06F11/16
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/328 Computer systems status display G06F11/327 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/865 Monitoring of software
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/44505 Configuring for program initiating, e.g. using registry, configuration files

Abstract

A system for facilitating examination of conditions across physical machines using augmented reality generates an overlay of information about application structure across physical systems, such as physical systems located within a data center. Additionally, the system for facilitating examination of application structure across physical machines using augmented reality overlays this information about application structure using imaging captured through a camera, such as a camera associated with a tablet type or smart phone type computing device.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a processor;

a data bus coupled to the processor; and

a computer-usable medium embodying computer program code, the computer-usable medium being coupled to the data bus, the computer program code comprising instructions executable by the processor and configured for;

defining presentation of software stacks executing on physical hardware in a data processing system environment;

defining presentation of information regarding a physical installed hardware environment of the data processing system environment;

obtaining information in real time about the physical hardware in the data processing system environment while in proximity with the physical hardware;

identifying the physical hardware based upon the information about the physical hardware;

obtaining condition information regarding physical hardware based upon the identifying; and

,

overlaying the condition information with images of the physical hardware, the condition information comprising information associated with the physical device regarding the software stacks executing on the physical hardware.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein

the identifying is based upon at least one of an identifier (ID) of the physical device and a quick response (QR) type code of the physical device, the at least one of the ID of the physical device and the QR type code of the physical device being visible on the physical machine.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein

the condition information comprises at least one of information regarding applications executing on the physical device, input/output health information, users presently operating on the physical device and diagnostics information generated by any diagnostics tools associated with the physical device.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein

the condition information is obtained from monitoring software, the monitoring software monitoring operation of the physical hardware.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein

the physical hardware comprises an officially registered end point of a data center pool of assets.

6. A non-transitory computer-usable medium embodying computer program code, the computer program code comprising computer executable instructions configured for:

defining presentation of software stacks executing on physical hardware in a data processing system environment;

defining presentation of information regarding a physical installed hardware environment of the data processing system environment;

obtaining information in real time about the physical hardware in the data processing system environment while in proximity with the physical hardware;

identifying the physical hardware based upon the information about the physical hardware;

obtaining condition information regarding physical hardware based upon the identifying; and

,

overlaying the condition information with images of the physical hardware, the condition information comprising information associated with the physical device regarding the software stacks executing on the physical hardware.

7. The non-transitory computer-usable medium of claim 6, wherein:

the identifying is based upon at least one of an identifier (ID) of the physical device and a quick response (QR) type code of the physical device, the at least one of the ID of the physical device and the QR type code of the physical device being visible on the physical machine.

8. The non-transitory computer-usable medium of claim 6, wherein

the conditions information comprises at least one of information regarding applications executing on the physical device, input/output health information, users presently operating on the physical device and diagnostics information generated by any diagnostics tools associated with the physical device.

9. The non-transitory computer-usable medium of claim 8, wherein

the condition information is obtain from monitoring software, the monitoring software monitoring operation of the physical hardware.

10. The non-transitory computer-usable medium of claim 6, wherein

the physical hardware comprises an officially registered end point of a data center pool of assets.