Data center network device sensing

Abstract

Provided is a process of managing rack-mounted computing devices in a data center with a distributed peer-to-peer management system, the process including: determining roles of data-center management computing devices in a distributed peer-to-peer data-center management system; receiving, via an out-of-band network, a data-center management command at a given data-center management computing device; distributing, based on at least some of the roles, via the out-of-band network, the data-center management command.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method, comprising:
 obtaining a plurality of containers executing on a plurality of hosts;   determining, with one of the containers, that a heartbeat signal has not been received from a current primary container among the containers and, in response, sending a signal from the one of the containers to at least some of the other containers among the plurality for containers indicating that the one of the containers proposes to be a new primary container;   determining, with at least some of the plurality of containers, with a consensus algorithm, responsive to the signal from the one of the containers, to elect the one of the containers the new primary container; and   orchestrating, with the new primary container, at least some of the plurality of containers.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , comprising:
 determining roles of data-center management computing devices in a distributed peer-to-peer data-center management system executing on the plurality of containers;   receiving, via an out-of-band network, a data-center management command at a given data-center management computing device executing the new primary container;   distributing, based on at least some of the roles, via the out-of-band network, the data-center management command from the given data-center management computing device to a first plurality of other data-center management computing devices; and   for each of the first plurality of other data-center management computing devices, distributing, based at least some of the roles, via the out-of-band network, the data-center management command to a respective second plurality of other data-center management computing devices, wherein:
 the given data-center management computing device, the first plurality of other data-center management computing devices, and the respective second pluralities of other data-center management computing devices are each configured to manage a respective plurality of rack-mounted computing devices; 
 each of the pluralities of respective rack-mounted computing devices executes an in-band application that communicates on an in-band network different from the out-of-band network; and 
 the data-center management command is a command to update or otherwise configure a microkernel, a virtual machine, a container, an operating system, or an application executing on one or more data-center management computing devices. 
   
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein determining to elect the one of the containers the new primary container comprises:
 sending, with the first one of the data-center management computing devices, a request to vote for a new leader along with the incremented or decremented count to other data-center management computing devices in the same second plurality of other data-center management computing devices;   receiving the request with a second one of the data-center management computing devices;   determining, with the second one of the data-center management computing devices, to vote for the first one of the data-center management computing devices, at least in part, by:
 determining that the second one of the data-center management computing devices has not yet submitted a vote associated with the incremented or decremented count; and 
 determining that the request is the first request received by the second one of the data-center management computing devices in a given round of voting; 
   sending, with the second one of the data-center management computing devices, the vote to other data-center management computing devices in the same second plurality of other data-center management computing devices;   selecting a leader based on amounts of votes received by candidate data-center management computing devices.   
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein:
 determining roles comprises determining roles in a peer-to-peer distributed application having a structured topology.   
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 4 , wherein:
 the structured topology is a tree topology having at least three levels, wherein:
 the given data-center management computing device is at a first level of the tree topology; 
 the first plurality of other data-center management computing devices is at a second level of the tree topology, each being adjacent to the given data-center management computing device in the tree topology; 
 the second pluralities of other data-center management computing devices are at a third level of the tree topology, each respective plurality of other data-center management computing devices being adjacent to a respective one of the first plurality of other data-center management computing devices in the tree topology. 
   
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein:
 determining roles comprises determining roles in a peer-to-peer distributed application having an unstructured topology.   
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 2 , comprising:
 determining, with at least one of the first plurality of other data-center management computing devices, that the given data-center management computing device has failed;   electing, with at least one of the first plurality of other data-center management computing devices, one of the first plurality of other data-center management computing devices to serve as a replacement to the given data-center management computing device in at least some roles filled by the given data-center management computing device; and   distributing a result of the election to each the first plurality of other data-center management computing devices.   
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 2 , comprising:
 obtaining a file with configuration information from a distributed file system stored with cross-computing-device redundancy by at least a plurality of the first plurality of other data-center management computing devices, the second pluralities of other data-center management computing devices, or both.   
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 8 , wherein:
 the file is stored with consensus-based replication based on a consensus protocol, and wherein the consensus protocol is used to determine at least some roles of the data center management computing devices.   
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein:
 at least some of the data-center management computing devices are a rack controller executed in an out-of-band computer having a processor and memory storing instructions that when executed effectuate at least some of the operations of  claim 1 ;   at least some of the data-center management computing devices manage rack-mounted computing devices via respective ones of a plurality of different power-line communication networks; and   the out-of-band network is a different network from the power-line communication networks.   
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein:
 at least some of the data-center management computing devices are rack-mounted computing devices executing a rack controller; and   at least some of the data-center management computing devices manage rack-mounted computing devices via an Ethernet network, without a power-line communication network connecting the at least some of the data-center management computing devices to the rack-mounted computing devices.   
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein:
 at least some of the data-center management computing devices are a rack-mounted computing device executing a rack controller; and   at least some of the data-center management computing devices manage rack-mounted computing devices via a power-line communication network.   
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein:
 at least some of the data-center management computing devices are a rack controller executed in an out-of-band computer having a processor and memory storing instructions that when executed effectuate at least some of the operations of  claim 1 ; and   at least some of the data-center management computing devices manage rack-mounted computing devices via a non-power-line communication network.   
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein:
 at least some of the data-center management computing devices execute rack controllers, each configured to manage a plurality of rack-mounted computing devices on a respective rack, a sensor on the respective rack, and an actuator on the respective rack, wherein the sensor and actuator are not on a chassis of one of the rack-mounted computing devices on the respective rack, wherein controlling the rack-mounted computing devices comprises:
 changing a boot target in an extensible firmware interface of a given one of the rack-mounted computing devices on the respective rack; 
 reading a value indicative of temperature from the sensor or a sensor of a given one of the rack-mounted computing devices on the respective rack; and 
 actuating the actuator. 
   
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein:
 the command includes a disk image containing an operating system, an application, and dependencies of the application to be installed on each of the first data-center management computing device, the first plurality of other data-center management computing devices, and the respective pluralities of other data-center management computing devices.   
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein:
 the command is a command to orchestrate containers executing on at least some of the data-center management computing devices.   
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein:
 the command is a command to configure a network operating system.   
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 2 , comprising implementing control and updates of rack controllers at the rack-level, in a distributed, concurrent routine. 
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 2 , wherein distributing, based at least some of the roles, via the out-of-band network, the data-center management command to a respective plurality of other data-center management computing devices comprises:
 periodically, by each of the plurality of other data-center management computing devices, sending a request to one of the plurality of other data-center management computing devices for an update; and   receiving an update, from the one of the plurality of other data-center management computing devices, with each of the plurality of other data-center management computing devices.   
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 2 , comprising:
 initializing a data center with a computer designated to act as a seed unit to distribute configuration files via the given data-center management computing device and the first plurality of other data-center management computing devices.