Back to results
US 10,592,341 B2Granted
Self-healing using a virtual boot device
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsAlex Friedman, Constantine Gavrilov
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Methods, apparatus and computer program products implement embodiments of the present invention that enable a computer system comprising networked computers to self-heal from a boot failure of one of the computers. In some embodiments, upon detecting a first computer having a memory and a physical boot device failing to successfully load a boot image, a second computer defines a virtual boot device in communication with the first computer and the second computer and having a boot image for the first computer. Subsequent to defining the virtual boot device, the second computer can configure the first computer to boot from the virtual boot device.
Claims14
A method, comprising:
- configuring, by a second computer, a first computer to boot from a virtual boot device;
- wherein the second computer is configured to define the virtual boot device in response to detecting a failure of the first computer, and detecting the failure comprises the second computer conveying a request to the first computer and not receiving a response to the request;
- and
- subsequent to booting the first computer from the virtual boot device, automatically reconfiguring, by the second computer, the first computer to boot from a physical boot device of the first computer upon a power cycle, wherein the second computer reconfigures the first computer by reformatting the physical boot device of the first computer, reporting and repairing problems of the physical boot device encountered during the reformatting to the second computer, saving a factory default boot image to the physical boot device, and reconfiguring a basic input/output system (BIOS) of the first computer to switch from booting from the virtual boot device to the physical boot device of the first computer upon the power cycle.
1 more element
An apparatus, comprising:
- a first computer having a memory and a physical boot device;
- and
- a second computer arranged:
- to configure the first computer to boot from a virtual boot device;
- wherein the second computer is configured to define the virtual boot device in response to detecting a failure of the first computer, and detecting the failure comprises the second computer conveying a request to the first computer and not receiving a response to the request;
- and
- to, subsequent to booting the first computer from the virtual boot device, automatically reconfigure the first computer to boot from the physical boot device of the first computer upon a power cycle, wherein the second computer reconfigures the first computer by reformatting the physical boot device of the first computer, reporting and repairing problems of the physical boot device encountered during the reformatting to the second computer, saving a factory default boot image to the physical boot device, and reconfiguring a basic input/output system (BIOS) of the first computer to switch from booting from the virtual boot device to the physical boot device of the first computer upon the power cycle.
4 more elements
A computer program product, the computer program product comprising:
- a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code comprising:
- computer readable program code configured to configure, by a second computer, a first computer to boot from a virtual boot device;
- wherein the second computer is configured to define the virtual boot device in response to detecting a failure of the first computer, and detecting the failure comprises the second computer conveying a request to the first computer and not receiving a response to the request;
- and
- computer readable program code configured to, subsequent to booting the first computer from the virtual boot device, automatically reconfigure, by the second computer, the first computer to boot from a physical boot device of the first computer upon a power cycle, wherein the second computer reconfigures the first computer by reformatting the physical boot device of the first computer, reporting and repairing problems of the physical boot device encountered during the reformatting to the second computer, saving a factory default boot image to the physical boot device, and reconfiguring a basic input/output system (BIOS) of the first computer to switch from booting from the virtual boot device to the physical boot device of the first computer upon the power cycle.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.