Patent ID: 7925728

Claim:
A method of facilitating detection of hardware service actions, said method comprising: automatically distinguishing, by a hardware management console, between intermittent availability of a hardware component of a communications environment indicative of an error state of the hardware component and performance of a service action to physically service the hardware component, the automatically distinguishing comprising automatically detecting, by the hardware management console and without user intervention, that a state associated with the hardware component has transitioned from connected state, to disconnected state and back to connected state, the detection of the transition from the disconnected state back to the connected state indicating performance of a service action to physically service the hardware component by an operator and indicating, restoration of constant availability of the hardware component; responsive to the automatically detecting indicating that the hardware component has been physically serviced by the operator, automatically determining by the hardware management console absent user intervention operational viability of the hardware component, the automatically determining comprising referencing information of one or more hardware registers associated with the hardware component related to operational viability thereof; responsive to automatically determining that the hardware component is operationally viable, using the hardware component operational; and wherein the transition from the disconnected state to the connected state comprises a transition from a disconnected state of a physical layer of the hardware component to a connected state of the physical layer of the hardware component, and wherein the detection of the transition from the disconnected state to the connected state indicates performance of a service action for the hardware component to correct for an error in the physical layer of the hardware component, the service action to correct for the error in the physical layer of the hardware component comprising removing a cable associated with the link, at least one of repairing a component of the link and replacing a component of the link, and re-installing the cable.