Stateless remote power management of computers

摘要

A remote power management system and method for awakening a remote computing device over a computer network. A wakeup event is initiated by a client on the network, and an application server publishes the wakeup event. A subscriber, such as the subnet where the remote computing device resides, picks up the wakeup event and gives it to a computing device on the subnet that is awake. The awake computing device constructs a “magic packet” to take advantage of the automatic wakeup feature of the network card on the remote computing device, and broadcasts the “magic packet” throughout the subnet. Stateless handling of wakeup events is used to alleviate any need for a dedicated proxy server on the subnet to send the “magic packets.” The computing device on the subnet that constructs and broadcasts the “magic packets” is rotated to provide equitable rest time for each of the computing devices.

主权项

1. A method for awakening a remote computing device, comprising:
publishing a wakeup event from an application server that is subscribed to by a subnet in a client network system having a plurality of computing devices in the subnet including the remote computing device, where at least one of the computing devices in the subnet is awake and other computing devices in the subnet are asleep including the remote computing device; receiving the wakeup event at an awake computing device on the subnet; awakening the remote computing device using the awake computing device on the subnet; selecting an awake threshold that represents a minimum number of computing devices that need to be awake at any given time on the subnet; sending out periodic heartbeats to the application server to inform the application server of a number of computing devices that are awake on the subnet; and rotating between the plurality of computing devices on the subnet computing devices that are awake and computing devices that are asleep so that different computing devices on the subnet are awake at any given time and are able to receive the wakeup event and awaken the remote computing device, wherein the rotation of computing devices ensures that the number of computing devices that are awake is not less than the awake threshold.