Selective loading of components within a node to speed up maintenance actions

1. A method, comprising:

identifying a subset of components of a node that should be loaded during the next boot of the node, wherein the subset of components includes a target component and only those components that are involved in testing the target component;

storing a list of the identified subset of components in a file outside of a basic input output system;

initiating boot of the node;

the basic input output system accessing the file and controlling boot of the node to load only the identified subset of components of the node; and

testing the target component.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein identifying a subset of components of a node that should be loaded during the next boot of the node, includes identifying one or more of the components of the node to be enabled and identifying one or more of the components of the node that should not be enabled.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

identifying an order in which each of the identified components are to be loaded during boot; and

storing the order in the file.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein identifying a subset of components of a node includes receiving a selection of components from a user interface of the node.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the basic input output system loads the subset of components in less time than required to load all of the components of the node.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the node is a server.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the file is a text based descriptor file.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the text based descriptor file is written in hypertext markup language (HTML), extensible markup language (XML), or comma separated values (CSV).

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the file is stored in memory of a management entity in communication with the basic input output system.

10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

editing the file using an application running on a management entity in communication with the basic input output system.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the subset of components are selected from a network adapter, RAID adapter, and memory DIMMs.

12. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

identifying a dependency between two or more of the identified components; and

storing the dependency in the file.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein identifying a subset of components of a node that should be loaded during the next boot of the node, includes using an input device on a front panel of the node.

14. A method comprising:

detecting that an individual component of a node has outdated firmware;

identifying a subset of components of the node that should be loaded during the next boot of the node;

storing a list of the identified subset of components in a file outside of a basic input output system, wherein the file indicates that the individual component having outdated firmware should not be loaded during the next boot of the node;

initiating boot of the node; and

the basic input output system accessing the file and controlling boot of the node to load only the identified subset of components of the node.

15. A method comprising:

identifying a date of a most recent firmware code update for each component of a node; and

identifying a subset of components of a node that should be loaded during the next boot of the node;

storing a list of the identified subset of components in a file outside of a basic input output system, wherein the file indicates an order in which the components are loaded as a function of the identified date of the most recent firmware code update for each component;

initiating boot of the node; and

the basic input output system accessing the file and controlling boot of the node to load only the identified subset of components of the node.