Information handling system configuration identification tool and method

• US 9,401,846 B2
• Filed: 10/17/2007
• Issued: 07/26/2016
• 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: Abels, Timothy, Janosky, Brian L.
• Primary Examiner(s): Tsai, Henry
• Assistant Examiner(s): BARTELS, CHRISTOPHER A.
• Application Number:
  US11/873,606
• Publication Number:
  US 20090106459A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,205 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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 Extensible Markup Language (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, at a technical support center, first configuration information representative of a configuration of a personal computer at a first time, the configuration comprising at least one of hardware attributes, software attributes, or firmware attributes of the personal computer, and wherein the first configuration information is determined by, and stored at, the personal computer;

storing the configuration information at a configuration management database (CMDB) accessible to the technical support center;

receiving, at the technical support center, encoded information representative of a change in configuration of the personal computer relative to the configuration of the personal computer at the first time, the encoded information determined by the personal computer and representing a subset of configuration information categories for the personal computer stored at the CMDB, the encoded information comprising an alphanumeric string to simplify communication of the change in configuration to an operator at the technical support center by a user of the personal computer via a configuration update device, the communication including at least one of verbal recitation or keyboard-enabled transmission of the alphanumeric string;

decoding the encoded information at the technical support center to produce decoded information, the decoding initiated by the operator; and

determining, at the technical support center, a change to the configuration of the personal computer relative to the configuration at the first time based on the decoded information and based on the first configuration 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 comprises:

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 personal computer.

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

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 a fault at the personal computer, the prediction based on the first set of tables and information stored at the CMDB prior to receiving the encoded information.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the CMDB is one of a plurality of CMDBs, and wherein the CMDB is updated automatically based on the decoded information.

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:

determining, at a personal computer, a first configuration of the personal computer at a first time, the first configuration comprising at least one of hardware attributes, software attributes, or firmware attributes of the personal computer;

providing configuration information representative of the first configuration of the personal computer to a technical support center, the technical support center operable to store the configuration information at a configuration management database (CMDB);

determining, at the personal computer, a second configuration of the personal computer at a second time, the second time after the first time;

determining, at the personal computer, a difference between the first configuration and the second configuration;

determining, at the personal computer, an encoded representation of the difference comprising an alphanumeric string to simplify communication of the difference to the technical support center; and

displaying the alphanumeric string at the personal computer to facilitate communication of the alphanumeric string, by a user of the personal computer, to an operator at the technical support center via a configuration update device, the communication including at least one of verbal recitation or keyboard-enabled transmission of the alphanumeric string.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

storing, at the personal computer, second information identifying a second change in configuration of the personal computer, the second information representing a second subset of configuration information for the personal computer 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 non-transitory computer storage medium embodying a computer program, the computer program comprising instructions to manipulate a processor, the instructions comprising:

instructions to store first information at a personal computer, the first information identifying a first change in configuration of the personal computer, the first change in configuration relative to a configuration represented by information previously provided to a configuration management database (CMDB), the CMDB located at a technical support center, the first information representing a first subset of configuration information categories for the personal computer stored at the CMDB, the first change in configuration comprising the addition or removal of a hardware device, firmware, or software from the personal computer;

instructions to encode the first information to produce encoded configuration information comprising an alphanumeric string representative of the first information; and

instructions to display the alphanumeric string at the personal computer to facilitate communication of the alphanumeric string by a user of the personal computer to an operator at the technical support center, the communication including verbal recitation of the alphanumeric string.

16. The non-transitory computer storage medium of claim 15, the instructions further comprising:

instructions to store, at the personal computer, second information identifying a second change in configuration of the personal computer, the second information representing a second subset of configuration information for the personal computer 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 non-transitory computer storage 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 non-transitory computer storage 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 non-transitory computer storage medium of claim 18, wherein the first information represents a version of software or data installed at the personal computer.

20. The non-transitory computer storage medium of claim 18, wherein the first information represents hardware or firmware installed at the personal computer.