Patents by Inventor Edward S. Suffern

Edward S. Suffern has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 9185833
    Abstract: Embodiments of the present invention provide an apparatus allowing for an adjustable face plate. The apparatus comprises a face plate, an adjustment device affixed to the face plate, wherein the adjustment device includes a plurality of ridges formed thereon to define a plurality of gaps, and wherein the adjustment device is capable of rotating about an axis, and a clamp affixed to an electronic device chassis, having a first arm contacting the adjustment device in a first gap of the plurality of gaps and allowing for rotation of the adjustment device about the axis from the first gap to a second gap of the plurality of gaps.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 12, 2014
    Date of Patent: November 10, 2015
    Assignee: Lenovo Enterprise Solutions (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
    Inventors: Shareef F. Alshinnawi, Gary D. Cudak, Edward S. Suffern, John M. Weber
  • Patent number: 9173320
    Abstract: In one embodiment of the present invention, a system selectively cools a set of at least one rack-mounted server in a chassis. The system comprises: a chassis; a chassis manager; a set of at least one thermal sensor coupled to each rack-mounted server in a chassis; a trolley track oriented functionally proximate to the multiple rack-mounted servers; and a cold air trolley movably mounted to the trolley track. The cold air trolley moves along the trolley track in order to be selectively oriented next to a particular overheating rack-mounted server in the chassis, thus providing a fluid conduit from a cold air source to the particular overheating rack-mounted server in response to the chassis manager detecting that the particular overheating rack-mounted server is exceeding a predetermined temperature.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 12, 2013
    Date of Patent: October 27, 2015
    Assignee: Lenovo Enterprise Solutions (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
    Inventors: Shareef F. Alshinnawi, Gary D. Cudak, Edward S. Suffern, J. Mark Weber
  • Patent number: 9170840
    Abstract: Duration sensitive scheduling in a computing environment, the computing environment including a computer configured to support a virtual machine, including: identifying, by a duration sensitive scheduler, a processing job to be executed by the virtual machine, wherein the virtual machine includes an entitlement specification that identifies physical resources of the computer that are designated for exclusive use by the virtual machine; determining, by the duration sensitive scheduler, a duration required to complete the processing job; identifying, by the duration sensitive scheduler, a time slot at which the physical resources of the computer that are identified in the entitlement specification are available for use by the virtual machine; scheduling, by the duration sensitive scheduler, the processing job for execution on the virtual machine during the time slot at which the physical resources of the computer that are identified in the entitlement specification are available for use by the virtual machine.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 2, 2011
    Date of Patent: October 27, 2015
    Assignee: Lenova Enterprise Solutions (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
    Inventors: James J. Bozek, Nils P. Hansson, Edward S. Suffern, James L. Wooldridge
  • Patent number: 9164805
    Abstract: A computer-implemented method obtains a correlation between percent utilization and noise level for a plurality of compute node types, and obtains an inventory of a plurality of compute nodes in a cluster, wherein the inventory identifies each compute node by a compute node type, and wherein the plurality of compute nodes includes two or more compute node types. The method further includes determining a percent utilization of each compute node, and, for each compute node of an identified compute node type, determining a noise level using the determined percent utilization for the compute node as input into the correlation between percent utilization and noise level for the identified compute node type. An overall noise level in the cluster is calculated using the noise level determined for each compute node, and workload is distributed among the plurality of compute nodes to reduce the calculated overall noise level in the cluster.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 14, 2013
    Date of Patent: October 20, 2015
    Assignee: Lenovo Enterprise Solutions (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
    Inventors: Shareef F. Alshinnawi, Gary D. Cudak, Edward S. Suffern, J. Mark Weber
  • Publication number: 20150264843
    Abstract: Embodiments of the present invention provide an apparatus allowing for an adjustable face plate. The apparatus comprises a face plate, an adjustment device affixed to the face plate, wherein the adjustment device includes a plurality of ridges formed thereon to define a plurality of gaps, and wherein the adjustment device is capable of rotating about an axis, and a clamp affixed to an electronic device chassis, having a first arm contacting the adjustment device in a first gap of the plurality of gaps and allowing for rotation of the adjustment device about the axis from the first gap to a second gap of the plurality of gaps.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 12, 2014
    Publication date: September 17, 2015
    Applicant: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Shareef F. Alshinnawi, Gary D. Cudak, Edward S. Suffern, John M. Weber
  • Patent number: 9136682
    Abstract: A cable detection system may be implemented in a datacenter to locate the path of a cable. The cable detection system includes a signal generator and driver circuit having its output in communication with a transformer, wherein the transformer has a first output coupled to a cable shield of an elongated cable and a second output coupled to a dedicated transmission wire extending lengthwise with the cable and exterior to the cable shield. The cable detection system further includes a plurality of detection circuits, wherein each detection circuit includes an electromagnetically-powered receiver coupled to a light emitting diode, and wherein radio frequency signals emitted from the transmission wire activate the light emitting diodes of the detection circuits within a detection distance of the cable.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 3, 2013
    Date of Patent: September 15, 2015
    Assignee: Lenovo Enterprise Solutions (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
    Inventors: Gary D. Cudak, Christopher J. Hardee, Adam Roberts, Edward S. Suffern
  • Patent number: 9137930
    Abstract: A rear door heat exchanger is used to cool exhaust air as it exits a rack containing a plurality of computing devices. An air flow rate is determined for each of the plurality of computing devices within the rack, wherein each of the plurality of computing devices includes a fan drawing air through the computing device. The position of a baffle or louver is controlled to allow exhaust air to bypass the rear door heat exchanger in response to determining that the total air flow rate through the plurality of computing devices exceeds a predetermined air flow capacity threshold of the rear door heat exchanger.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 28, 2013
    Date of Patent: September 15, 2015
    Assignee: Lenovo Enterprise Solutions (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
    Inventors: Shareef F. Alshinnawi, Gary D. Cudak, Robert W. Stegner, Edward S. Suffern, J. Mark Weber
  • Patent number: 9122673
    Abstract: Embodiments of the present invention provide a method, system and computer program product for the domain specific normalization of a corpus of text. In an embodiment of the invention, a method for domain specific normalization of a corpus of text is provided, including an industrial, organization, demographic or geographic domain. The method includes loading a corpus of text in memory of a computer and determining a domain for the corpus of text. The method also includes retrieving a lexicon of replacement words for the determined domain. Finally, the method includes text simplifying the corpus of text using the retrieved lexicon. In one aspect of the embodiment, the domain is determined through inference based upon words already presence in the corpus of text. In another aspect of the embodiment, the domain is determined based upon meta-data provided with the corpus of text.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 7, 2012
    Date of Patent: September 1, 2015
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Shareef Alshinnawi, Gary D. Cudak, Edward S. Suffern, John M. Weber
  • Publication number: 20150236906
    Abstract: Embodiments of the present invention disclose a method, computer program product, and system for port assignment based on device orientation. In one embodiment, in accordance with the present invention, the computer implemented method includes the steps of determining a physical orientation of a computing device utilizing an orientation measurement device, wherein the computing device includes a plurality of ports on at least one face of the computing device, identifying a set of port numbering assignments that corresponds to the determined physical orientation of the computing device, modifying port numbering firmware of the computing device based on the identified set of port numbering assignments, and electronically displaying labeling corresponding to the plurality of ports on the face of the computing device based on the modified port numbering firmware and the identified set of port numbering assignments.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 17, 2014
    Publication date: August 20, 2015
    Applicant: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Shareef F. Alshinnawi, Gary D. Cudak, Edward S. Suffern, John M. Weber
  • Patent number: 9105188
    Abstract: A method controls vehicular traffic on a one-way roadway. A hardware sensor detects vehicular traffic on a roadway. A hardware traffic control device determines whether the vehicular traffic on the roadway has been moving exclusively in a first direction during a preceding period of time, such that the roadway is a one-way roadway on which current vehicular traffic is authorized to travel only in the first direction. The hardware sensor detects an errant vehicle that is traveling on the one-way roadway in a second direction that is opposite the first direction. In response to determining that the errant vehicle is traveling in the second direction on the one-way roadway, a warning signal is transmitted to vehicles, other than the errant vehicle, on the one-way roadway.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 20, 2013
    Date of Patent: August 11, 2015
    Assignee: Lenovo Enterprise Solutions (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
    Inventors: Shareef F. Alshinnawi, Gary D. Cudak, Edward S. Suffern, J. Mark Weber
  • Patent number: 9083170
    Abstract: Embodiments of the invention provide a method of tracing cable through a datacenter. The method causes a cable to emit a radio frequency signal along the length of the cable. One or more structural members have a detection circuit that will illuminate in response to detecting the radio frequency signal with greater than a threshold signal strength, such that the one or more structural members are easy to identify when the detection circuit is illuminated. The one or more structural members may be removed to gain physical access to the cable.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 6, 2013
    Date of Patent: July 14, 2015
    Assignee: Lenovo Enterprise Solutions (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
    Inventors: Gary D. Cudak, Christopher J. Hardee, Adam Roberts, Edward S. Suffern
  • Patent number: 9058156
    Abstract: A computer-implemented method identifies the path of a first power circuit to a first power supply that is connected to supply power to an electronic device, and identifies the path of a second power circuit to a second power supply that is connected to supply power to the electronic device. The method then compares the path of the first power distribution circuit with the path of the second power distribution circuit to determine a measure of redundancy in the first and second distribution paths. A measure of redundancy may then be output to a user.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 26, 2012
    Date of Patent: June 16, 2015
    Assignee: Lenovo Enterprise Solutions (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
    Inventors: Shareef F. Alshinnawi, Gary D. Cudak, Edward S. Suffern, J. Mark Weber, Andrew H. Wray
  • Publication number: 20150154048
    Abstract: A method and a computer program product for implementing the method are provided for wear leveling the physical servers or other components within a cluster. The method includes identifying uptime for each of a plurality of physical servers within a cluster and scheduling jobs on the physical servers within the cluster giving priority to the use of physical servers in order of increasing uptime. The physical servers within the cluster that have no assigned jobs are then powered off. As a result, physical servers having low uptime relative to other physical servers within the cluster will operate more so that their uptime increases, and physical servers having high uptime relative to other physical servers within the cluster will operate less so that their uptime does not increase. Over time, the method will narrow the range of uptime, which may be referred to as “wear leveling.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 4, 2013
    Publication date: June 4, 2015
    Applicant: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Shareef F. Alshinnawi, Gary D. Cudak, Edward S. Suffern, J. Mark Weber
  • Patent number: 9047190
    Abstract: Receiving, by a blade management module from a client blade, notification of a loss of communications between a remote desktop apparatus and the client blade; responsive to the notification, accepting, by the blade management module from the remote desktop apparatus, an instruction to alter a power setting of the client blade; and; responsive to the instruction, altering, by the blade management module, the power setting of the client blade.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 10, 2007
    Date of Patent: June 2, 2015
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Keith M. Campbell, Raymond T. Greggs, James G. McLean, Caroline M. Metry, Edward S. Suffern
  • Publication number: 20150134825
    Abstract: A computer-implemented method obtains a correlation between percent utilization and noise level for a plurality of compute node types, and obtains an inventory of a plurality of compute nodes in a cluster, wherein the inventory identifies each compute node by a compute node type, and wherein the plurality of compute nodes includes two or more compute node types. The method further includes determining a percent utilization of each compute node, and, for each compute node of an identified compute node type, determining a noise level using the determined percent utilization for the compute node as input into the correlation between percent utilization and noise level for the identified compute node type. An overall noise level in the cluster is calculated using the noise level determined for each compute node, and workload is distributed among the plurality of compute nodes to reduce the calculated overall noise level in the cluster.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 14, 2013
    Publication date: May 14, 2015
    Applicant: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Shareef F. Alshinnawi, Gary D. Cudak, Edward S. Suffern, J. Mark Weber
  • Publication number: 20150128286
    Abstract: Preventing changes to computing devices in a computing system servicing a critical job, including: identifying, by a job protection module, a critical job executing in the computing system; identifying, by the job protection module, one or more computing devices in the computing system utilized during execution of the critical job; and locking, by the job protection module, each of the one or more computing devices in the computing system utilized during execution of the critical job from undergoing a configuration change during execution of the critical job.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 7, 2013
    Publication date: May 7, 2015
    Inventors: SHAREEF F. ALSHINNAWI, GARY D. CUDAK, EDWARD S. SUFFERN, J. MARK WEBER
  • Patent number: 9024787
    Abstract: A hardware traffic control device controls vehicular traffic on a one-way roadway. A hardware sensor detects vehicular traffic on a roadway in order to enable a hardware traffic control device to determine that the vehicular traffic on the roadway has been moving exclusively in a first direction during a preceding period of time, thus identifying the roadway as a one-way roadway in which current vehicular traffic is authorized to travel only in the first direction. The hardware sensor then detects an errant vehicle that is traveling in the opposite direction on the one-way roadway. A disabling electronic signal is then transmitted from the hardware traffic control device to disable a distracting electronic device within the errant vehicle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 18, 2013
    Date of Patent: May 5, 2015
    Assignee: Lenovo Enterprise Solutions (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
    Inventors: Shareef F. Alshinnawi, Gary D. Cudak, Edward S. Suffern, J. Mark Weber
  • Publication number: 20150121053
    Abstract: Loading an operating system of a diskless compute node using a single Virtual Protocol Interconnect (VPI) adapter, including: setting, by a VPI firmware module during startup of the compute node, an operational mode of the VPI adapter to operate in accordance with a first data communications protocol, the VPI adapter including a preboot execution environment module that supports the first data communications protocol prior to loading an operating system and a driver for the first data communications protocol; retrieving, by the VPI firmware module from a network source via the VPI adapter in accordance with the first data communications protocol, the operating system and a driver for the second data communications protocol; and responsive to loading the operating system and the driver for the second data communications protocol, switching the operational mode of the VPI adapter to operate in accordance with the second data communications protocol.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 25, 2013
    Publication date: April 30, 2015
    Applicant: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Jarrod B. Johnson, Edward S. Suffern, Andrew H. Wray
  • Publication number: 20150120885
    Abstract: Loading an operating system of a diskless compute node using a single Virtual Protocol Interconnect (‘VPI’) adapter, including: setting, by a VPI firmware module during startup of the compute node, an operational mode of the VPI adapter to operate in accordance with a first data communications protocol, the VPI adapter including a preboot execution environment module that supports the first data communications protocol prior to loading an operating system and a driver for the first data communications protocol; retrieving, by the VPI firmware module from a network source via the VPI adapter in accordance with the first data communications protocol, the operating system and a driver for the second data communications protocol; and responsive to loading the operating system and the driver for the second data communications protocol, switching the operational mode of the VPI adapter to operate in accordance with the second data communications protocol.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 24, 2013
    Publication date: April 30, 2015
    Inventors: JARROD B. JOHNSON, EDWARD S. SUFFERN, ANDREW H. WRAY
  • Publication number: 20150105009
    Abstract: A method and computer program product are provided for controlling the airflow direction through a device enclosure. A first device enclosure is positioned adjacent a second device enclosure, wherein both enclosures have an airflow pathway extending from the front to the back, and a fan for moving air through the airflow pathway, wherein the fan of the first device enclosure is a reversible rotary fan. The method automatically determines whether the first device enclosure is in a first orientation with its front facing in the same direction as the front of the adjacent second device enclosure or in a second orientation with the front facing in the same direction as the back of the adjacent second device enclosure. The airflow direction imparted by a reversible rotary fan is then controlled according to the determined orientation of the first device enclosure relative to the second device enclosure.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 10, 2013
    Publication date: April 16, 2015
    Applicant: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Shareef F. Alshinnawi, Gary D. Cudak, Edward S. Suffern, J. Mark Weber