System and method for in-service diagnostics based on health signatures

• US 9,747,182 B2
• Filed: 08/28/2015
• Issued: 08/29/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 03/08/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dell Products LP (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Dell Products LP (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Thornley, Bryan James, Cox, Claude Lano, Vichare, Nikhil Manohar, Makhija, Vinod
• Primary Examiner(s): Iqbal, Nadeem
• Application Number:
  US14/838,974
• Publication Number:
  US 20160232069A1
• Time in Patent Office: 732 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/00 Error detection; Error correction; Monitoring error detection, correction or monitoring in information storage based on relative movement between record carrier and transducer G11B20/18; monitoring, i.e. supervising the progress of recording or reproducing G11B27/36; in static stores G11C29/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0736 in functional embedded systems, i.e. in a data processing system designed as a combination of hardware and software dedicated to performing a certain function testing or monitoring of automated control systems G05B23/02
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0784 Routing of error reports, e.g. with a specific transmission path or data flow
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/079 Root cause analysis, i.e. error or fault diagnosis in a hardware test environment G06F11/22; in a software test environment G06F11/36
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/263 Generation of test inputs, e.g. test vectors, patterns or sequences ; with adaptation of the tested hardware for testability with external testers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3688 for test execution, e.g. scheduling of test suites
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3692 for test results analysis

Abstract

In accordance with the present disclosure, a system and method are herein disclosed for providing in-service diagnostics based on health signatures of an information handling system. In one embodiment, the health of an information handling system is periodically probed by a software agent running as a service. The service polls a set of probes from interfaces on the host system and tracks parameters indicative of system and component health and performance. An analytics engine processes the data to identify anomalies and outliers, and to detect signatures that are precursors to potential service incidents. A rule set matches signatures to potential actions. Based on the detected signatures and rule sets, the service is operable to select, schedule, and execute one or more diagnostic tests. If an information handling system or component thereof fails a diagnostic test, the results are archived to persistent storage and communicated to an administrator.

Claims

1. A method for providing diagnostics in an information handling system having a non-transitory computer readable storage medium, the method comprising:

sensing that the information handling system is resuming from a system crash; and

obtaining a crash health signature, wherein the crash health signature comprises crash data;

determining a type of crash based, at least in part, on the crash data of the crash health signature, wherein the crash health signature is indicative of at least one of memory corruption, hardware configuration, and software configuration;

tracking one or more parameters indicative of health of the information handling system;

storing, on the non-transitory computer readable storage medium, data related to the plurality of parameters;

generating one or more statistics based, at least in part, on the plurality of parameters;

selecting, based on at least one of, the crash data and at least one of the plurality of parameters, a diagnostic test to execute;

scheduling the selected diagnostic test;

executing the selected diagnostic test; and

obtaining a validation code from the selected diagnostic test.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the selected diagnostic test is scheduled and executed while the information handling system is operational.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the selected diagnostic test is scheduled for and executed during a reboot of the information handling system.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

obtaining the plurality of parameters from a telemetry service.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of parameters are indicative of at least one of a thermistor, a fan speed, a battery data, a basic input/output log (BIOS), a crash, and a connector mating.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the crash data comprises at least one of an error code, identification of a crashing driver, and identification of a crashing application.

7. A non-transitory, computer readable storage medium comprising executable instructions to cause at least one processor, of an information handling system, coupled to the computer readable storage medium to:

sense that the information handling system is resuming from a system crash; and

obtain a crash health signature, wherein the crash health signature comprises crash data;

determine a type of crash based, at least in part, on the crash data of the crash health signature, wherein the crash health signature is indicative of at least one of memory corruption, hardware configuration, and software configuration;

track one or more parameters indicative of health of the information handling system;

store, on the non-transitory computer readable storage medium, data related to the plurality of parameters;

generate one or more statistics based, at least in part, on the plurality of parameters;

select, based on at least one of, the crash data and at least one of the plurality of parameters, a diagnostic test to execute;

schedule the selected diagnostic test;

execute the selected diagnostic test; and

obtain a validation code from the selected diagnostic test.

8. The non-transitory, computer readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the selected diagnostic test is scheduled and executed while the information handling system is operational.

9. The non-transitory, computer readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the selected diagnostic test is scheduled for and executed during a reboot of the information handling system.

10. The non-transitory, computer readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the instructions further cause the at least one processor to:

obtain the plurality of parameters from a telemetry service.

11. The non-transitory, computer readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the plurality of parameters are indicative of at least one of a thermistor, a fan speed, a battery data, a basic input/output log (BIOS), a crash, and a connector mating.

12. The non-transitory, computer readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the crash data comprises at least one of an error code, identification of a crashing driver, and identification of a crashing application.

13. The non-transitory, computer readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the instructions further cause the at least one processor to:

send an alert, wherein the alert comprises at least one of the crash health signature and the validation code.

14. An information handling system, comprising:

at least one processor; and

a non-transitory, computer readable storage medium coupled to the at least one processor, wherein the non-transitory, computer readable storage medium comprises instructions that cause the at least one processor to;

sense that the information handling system is resuming from a system crash; and

obtain a crash health signature, wherein the crash health signature comprises crash data;

determine a type of crash based, at least in part, on the crash data of the crash health signature, wherein the crash health signature is indicative of at least one of memory corruption, hardware configuration, and software configuration;

track one or more parameters indicative of health of the information handling system;

store, on the non-transitory computer readable storage medium, data related to the plurality of parameters;

generate one or more statistics based, at least in part, on the plurality of parameters;

select, based on at least one of, the crash data and at least one of the plurality of parameters, a diagnostic test to execute;

schedule the selected diagnostic test;

execute the selected diagnostic test; and

obtain a validation code from the selected diagnostic test.

15. The information handling system of claim 14, wherein the selected diagnostic test is scheduled and executed while the information handling system is operational.

16. The information handling system of claim 14, wherein the selected diagnostic test is scheduled for and executed during a reboot of the information handling system.

17. The information handling system of claim 14, wherein the instructions further cause the at least one processor to:

obtain the plurality of parameters from a telemetry service.

18. The information handling system of claim 14, wherein the plurality of parameters are indicative of at least one of a thermistor, a fan speed, a battery data, a basic input/output log (BIOS), a crash, and a connector mating.

19. The information handling system of claim 14, wherein the crash data comprises at least one of an error code, identification of a crashing driver, and identification of a crashing application.

20. The information handling system of claim 14, wherein the monitoring a plurality of parameters indicative of the health of the information handling system and its components comprises monitoring parameters related to a battery in the information handling system.