Patent ID: 9727117
Date: 2017-08-08
CPC Classifications: G06F,H02H,H02J

Claim:
1. A system for identifying power supply path segments and power supply path redundancies in a datacenter, the system comprising: a plurality of power supply units (PSUs); a plurality of information technology equipment (ITE); a plurality of transforming power distribution units (PDUs) and a plurality of non-transforming PDUs; a database; and a server computer; wherein downstream refers to a power supply path direction towards one of the plurality of ITEs, and upstream refers to a power supply path direction towards one of the plurality of PSUs; wherein each of the plurality of PSUs is connected over a respective power supply path segment to one or more of the plurality of transforming PDUs, each of the plurality of transforming PDUs is further connected over a respective power supply path segment to one or more of the plurality of non-transforming PDUs, and each of the plurality of non-transforming PDUs is further connected over a respective supply path segment to one of the plurality of ITE; wherein each of the plurality of transforming PDUs receives power at a first voltage, transforms the power to a second voltage, and distributes power at the second voltage, and each of the plurality of non-transforming PDUs receives power at a first voltage, does not transform the power to a second voltage, and distributes power at the received first voltage; each of the plurality of ITE being operated to transmit via a transmitter, using an Ethernet over power protocol, to each of the plurality of upstream non-transforming PDUs to which it is connected, a data packet that includes a unique identifier identifying the ITE; each of the plurality of non-transforming PDUs being operated to receive the unique identifiers from each of the plurality of downstream ITE to which it is connected, to concatenate its unique identifier to each of the received unique ITE identifiers to create first concatenated identifiers, and to transmit via a transmitter, using an Ethernet over power protocol, to each of the plurality of upstream transforming PDUs to which it is connected, a data packet that includes the first concatenated identifiers; each of the plurality of transforming PDUs being operated to receive the first concatenated identifiers from each of the plurality of downstream non-transforming PDUs to which it is connected, to concatenate its unique identifier to each of the received first concatenated identifiers to create second concatenated identifiers, to compile the second concatenated identifiers, and to transmit the compiled second concatenated identifiers in a data packet to the database, and each of the plurality of transforming PDUs being further operated to transmit via a transmitter, using an Ethernet over power protocol, to each of the plurality of upstream PSUs to which it is connected, a data packet that includes a unique identifier identifying the transforming PDU; each of the plurality of PSUs being operated to receive the unique identifiers from each of the plurality of transforming PDUs to which it is connected, to concatenate its unique identifier to each of the received unique identifiers from each of the plurality of transforming PDUs to create third concatenated identifiers, to compile the third concatenated identifiers and to transmit the compiled third concatenated identifiers in a data packet to the database; the server computer being operated to identify, based on the compiled packets received by the database, one or more power supply paths from each of the plurality of PSUs to each of the plurality of ITE, the location of each of the plurality of transforming and non-transforming PDUs and each of the plurality of ITE in the identified power supply paths, and to determine whether each of the plurality of ITE is powered by two or more discrete power supply paths.