US 8,914,495 B2Granted

Automatically detecting and locating equipment within an equipment rack

AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation

InventorsRajarshi Das, Wael R. El-Essawy, Thomas W. Keller, Jr., Jeffrey O. Kephart, Juan C. Rubio

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Abstract

A mechanism is provided for automatically detecting and locating equipment within an intelligent equipment rack. The intelligent equipment rack comprises a rack controller that determines whether a signal has been received indicating that a rack space in a plurality of rack spaces in the intelligent equipment rack has been occupied by a piece of electronic equipment. Responsive to receiving the signal indicating that the rack space has been occupied by the piece of electronic equipment, the rack controller updates a rack information table in the memory with occupation information related to the rack space occupied by the piece of electronic equipment.

Claims21

Dependent claims

An intelligent equipment rack, comprising:

a rack controller;
and
a memory coupled to a processor in the rack controller, wherein the memory comprises instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to:
determine whether a signal has been received indicating that a rack space in a plurality of rack spaces in the intelligent equipment rack has been occupied by a piece of electronic equipment;
responsive to receiving the signal indicating that the rack space has been occupied by the piece of electronic equipment, update a rack information table in the memory with occupation information related to the rack space occupied by the piece of electronic equipment;
receive first equipment information specific to the piece of electronic equipment from the piece of electronic equipment, wherein the first equipment information comprises a number of rack spaces occupied by the electronic equipment, a connection point of the electronic equipment, and directions of other spaces occupied by the electronic equipment;
and update the rack information table in the memory with the first equipment information provided by the piece of electronic equipment.

4 more elements

A method, in a data processing system, for automatically detecting and locating equipment within an intelligent equipment rack, the method comprising:

determining, by a processor within the data processing system, whether a signal has been received indicating that a rack space in a plurality of rack spaces in the intelligent equipment rack has been occupied by a piece of electronic equipment;
responsive to receiving the signal indicating that the rack space has been occupied by the piece of electronic equipment, update, by the processor, a rack information table in the memory with occupation information related to the rack space occupied by the piece of electronic equipment;
receiving by the processor, first equipment information from the piece of electronic equipment wherein the first equipment information comprises a number of rack space occupied by the electronic equipment, a connection point of the electronic equipment, and directions of other spaces occupied by the electronic equipment and updating, by the processor, the rack information table in the memory with the first equipment information provided by the piece of electronic equipment.

A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having a computer readable program stored therein, wherein the computer readable program, when executed on a computing device, causes the computing device to:

determine whether a signal has been received indicating that a rack space in a plurality of rack spaces in an intelligent equipment rack has been occupied by a piece of electronic equipment;
responsive to receiving the signal indicating that the rack space has been occupied by the piece of electronic equipment, update a rack information table in the memory with occupation information related to the rack space occupied by the piece of electronic equipment;
receive first equipment information from the piece of electronic equipment, wherein the f equipment information comprises a number of racks aces occupied by the electronic equipment, a connection point of the electronic equipment, and directions of other spaces occupied by the electronic equipment;
and
update the rack information table in the memory with the first equipment information provided by the piece of electronic equipment.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.