Granted Patent B2

US 6,904,482 · App. 10/086,410 · Granted Jun 7, 2005

Abstract

Claims (27)

1. A method to provision a plurality of servers, comprising:

receiving a request to load an operating system (OS) from each of a plurality of server blades, each server blade being implemented as a single board;

determining an identifier for each of said plurality of server blades;

searching for an OS identifier associated with said server blade identifier;

retrieving an OS from a storage system using said OS identifier; and

loading each server blade with its retrieved OS.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein said receiving comprises:

creating a connection between each of said server blades and said storage system; and

receiving said request over said connection.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein said determining comprises receiving said server blade identifier with said request from each server blade.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein said server blade identifier is a dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) address.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein said loading comprises:

sending each server blade its retrieved OS; and

executing said OS at said server blade.

6. A method to provision a plurality of servers, comprising:

creating a connection between a server blade and a storage blade, said server blade being implemented as a single board and said storage blade having a plurality of operating system (OS) software;

sending a request to provision said server blade with one of said OS software; and

receiving OS software in response to said request.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein said request includes a server blade identifier and an OS identifier.

8. The method of claim 6 , wherein said server blade identifier is a dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) address.

9. The method of claim 6 , further comprising:

receiving said request at said storage blade;

identifying an OS for said server blade using an OS identifier; and

sending said OS to said server blade over said connection.

10. The method of claim 6 , further comprising:

storing said OS software in memory; and

executing said OS software.

Assignments (9)