Patent ID: 9535685
Date: 2017-01-03
CPC Classifications: G06F

Claim:
1. A computer-implemented method of identifying a version of a software application for installation on computerized equipment, the method comprising: receiving, by the computerized equipment, an electronic communication containing a software version database which identifies different versions of the software application; performing, by the computerized equipment, an update assessment operation based on the software version database to determine whether there exists newer versions of the software application available for installation on the computerized equipment; and providing, by the computerized equipment, an electronic notification to a user of the computerized equipment in response to a result of the update assessment operation indicating that there exists newer versions of the software application available for installation on the computerized equipment, the electronic notification identifying, for installation on the computerized equipment, a particular newer version of the newer versions of the software application available for installation on the computerized equipment; wherein an installed version of the software application is currently installed on the computerized equipment; wherein the result of the update assessment operation indicates that a first newer version and a second newer version of the software application are available for installation on the computerized equipment, the second newer version having been released more recently than the first newer version; wherein providing the electronic notification to the user includes: supplying, as the electronic notification, an electronic instruction to the user which instructs the user to install the first newer version on the computerized equipment rather than the second newer version which was released more recently that the first newer version; wherein the method further comprises: after supplying the electronic instruction to the user, receiving an upgrade command from the user to install the first newer version on the computerized equipment rather than the second newer version which was released more recently that the first newer version, and installing the first newer version on the computerized equipment in place of the installed version of the software application to upgrade the software application; wherein the computerized equipment is a data storage array having an array of storage devices; wherein the method further comprises: performing, on behalf of a set of host computers which is external to the computerized equipment, host initiated input/output (I/O) operations to store host data in and load host data from the array of storage devices while the computerized equipment performs the update assessment operation and provides the electronic notification to the user; and wherein receiving the electronic communication containing the software version database includes: acquiring a catalogue file containing version entries identifying the different versions of the software application, each version entry including a version identifier which uniquely identifies a respective version of the software application.