Abstract: Described are techniques for obtaining information about a data storage system. Boot code is executed on the data storage system and determines whether a flag is set. If the flag is set, an agent is executed which communicates with a central location at predetermined time intervals. At a first predetermined time interval, a first message is sent to the central location polling for a pending work item. If there are any work items pending for the data storage system, first processing is performed which includes sending a second message to the data storage system indicating whether there are any pending work items for the data storage system and including at least one work item if there are any pending work items. The at least one work item describes second processing to obtain first information about a state of the data storage system.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and computer program products for automatically determining locations of interconnected processing modules are disclosed. Physical identifiers are determined for each of a plurality of processing modules connected to each other in a linear topology. Communications are iteratively disabled with each of the processing modules. Discover messages are sent to active, reachable processing modules and responses are received from the active processing modules that receive the discover messages. Based on the number of responses, the location of each processing module is determined.