Datasheet

US 7,099,934 B1
1
NETWORK-CONNEC TING POWER
MANAGER FOR REMOTE APPLIANCES
CO-PENDING APPLICATIONS
This application is a continuation-in-part of US. patent
application Ser. No. 09/375,471, ?led Aug. 16, 1999, titled
REMOTE POWER CONTROL SYSTEM THAT VERI
FIES WHICH DEVICES WILL BE SHUT-DOWN
BEFORE SUCH ACTION IS COMMIITED, now US. Pat.
No. 6,711,613, Which in turn is a continuation-in-part of
US. patent application Ser. No. 08/685,436, that Was ?led
on Jul. 23, 1996 and is titled, SYSTEM FOR READING
THE STATUS AND CONTROLLING THE POWER SUP
PLIES OF APPLIANCES CONNECTED TO COMPUTER
NETWORKS, and now US. Pat. No. 5,949,974, issued Sep.
7, 1999.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to automatic poWer con
trol and more particularly to remote control methods and
devices to reboot computer-based appliances that have fro
Zen, locked-up, crashed, or otherWise become inoperable.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Anthony Coppola describes a computer poWer manage
ment system in US. Pat. No. 4,611,289, issued Sep. 9, 1986.
A uninterruptable poWer supply With a limited poWer storage
is connected to supply one or more computers With operat
ing poWer. A poWer manager implemented With a micropro
cessor is connected to signal the computers When poWer
reserves are running short and a graceful shut-doWn should
be executed. This alloWs data to be saved to disk for use
later. The poWer manager also signals the computers When
poWer conditions have been restored to normal. The com
puters can signal the poWer manager to tell it When backup
poWer can safely be cut o?‘.
If such computers Were located at some remote site and
they shut doWn, some other means Would be necessary to
?nd out Why. And if these remote computers Were to crash
or lock-up due to some softWare fault, the poWer manager
described by Coppola has no Way to be commanded to
poWer cycle the poWer to any of the computers.
By at least 1991, American PoWer Conversion (APC)
(West Kingston, RI) marketed CALL-UPS, Which Was a
telephone-actuated remote UPS turn-on accessory. The
CALL-UPS Was intended to Work With the APC SMART
UPS to protect computers from broWnouts and poWer out
ages. Such CALL-UPS connected betWeen a remote com
puter’s modem and the telco subscriber line outlet. When an
incoming call Was detected by its ring or loop current, the
CALL-UPS Would command the SMART-UPS to turn on.
This, in turn, Would cause the computer to boot-up, load
application softWare, and take the call. The poWer Would
stay up a feW minutes after the call terminated so call-backs
could be handled Without the reboot delay. Serial data
communication only progressed after the computer booted
up, loaded the application softWare, and ?nished the modem
handshaking. The so-called CALL-UPS-IL Was introduced
about February of 1994 and it enabled a locked-up LAN
service to be remotely corrected by rebooting crashed
devices through an out-of-band modem link.
A very similar but much earlier arrangement is described
by Guido Badagnani, et al., in US. Pat. No. 4,051,326,
issued Sep. 27, 1977. A call ring signal is used to turn on a
data terminal. Once the data terminal completes its initial
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iZation, it sends a ready-to-receive signal and a data con
versation can begin. Another telephone-activated poWer
controller is described by Vincent Busam, et al., in US. Pat.
No. 4,647,721, issued Mar. 3, 1987.
Another one like these is described by Arthur P. Ferlan, in
US. Pat. No. 4,206,444, issued Jun. 3, 1980, and titled
REMOTE POWER CONTROLLER UTILIZING COM
MUNICATION LINES. The stated objective is to alloW
remote computers to turn olf and be poWered up only When
needed. For example, When another computer calls in and
Wants service. But here encoded messages are used on
dedicated telephone lines, e.g., Dataphone Service. The
remote veri?es Who is calling, and alloWs access only if
authoriZed. If authoriZed, the remote computer is poWered
up.
A kind of alarm clock Was added to this basic con?gu
ration by Raymond A. Oliva, et al., their device for control
ling the application of poWer to a computer is described in
US. Pat. No. 4,701,946, issued Oct. 20, 1987. The alarm
clock can turn the remote computer on and olf according to
a preset schedule.
TWo of the present inventors, Carrel EWing and AndreW
Cleveland, described technology along these general lines in
PCT International Publication Number W0 93/ 10615, pub
lished May 27, 1993. This is a system for protecting and
restarting computers and peripherals at remote sites Which
are accessible by telephone communication. They also ?led
US. patent application Ser. No. 08/061,197, on May 13,
1993, and noW abandoned, for a REMOTE POWER CON
TROL SYSTEM FOR COMPUTER AND PERIPHERAL
EQUIPMENT. Such speci?cally described poWer-cycling to
reset a remote computer that had become hung up.
Things have changed quite a lot since then. Computer
based appliances are noW required to be on all the time. Any
doWn-time is costly. But computers being What they are,
they lock up occasionally and a poWer-on reset is about the
only Way to generate a reboot. When such computer-based
appliances are netWork servers, routers, and bridges located
at telco modem-farm locations, it isn’t practical to send a
technician to the site to force the operating poWer on-olT-on.
Much more than a simple phone call to a dial-up number is
needed too, an accidental reboot could cause serious damage
to user’s data and the service provider’s goodWill.
Enterprise netWorks exist to support large World-Wide
organiZations and depend on a combination of technologies,
e.g., data communications, inter-netWorking equipment
(frame relay controllers, asynchronous transfer mode (ATM)
sWitches, routers, integrated services digital netWork (ISDN)
controllers, application servers), and netWork management
application softWare. Such enterprise netWorks can be used
to support a large company’s branch offices throughout the
World, and, as such, these netWorks have become mission
critical to the functioning of such organizations. Masses of
information are routinely expected to be exchanged, and
such information exchanges are necessary to carry on the
daily business of modern organizations. For example, some
international banks have thousands of branch of?ces placed
throughout Europe, Asia and the United States that each
critically depend on their ability to communicate banking
transactions quickly and ef?ciently With one another and
headquarters.
A typical enterprise netWork uses building blocks of
router and frame relay netWork appliances mounted in
equipment racks. Such equipment racks are distributed to
remote point of presence (POP) locations in the particular
netWork. Each equipment rack can include frame relay
controllers, routers, ISDN controllers, servers and modems,