Method, apparatus and system for restarting an emulated mainframe iop

An apparatus for emulating a mainframe computer having a mainframe CPU/memory complex, the apparatus comprising:

• an emulated mainframe memory component including at least a portion of a home location;
• an emulated mainframe IOP coupled to the emulated mainframe memory;
• and
• a rescue mechanism coupled to the emulated mainframe IOP, wherein the rescue mechanism is configured to
• poll the home location for a Restart Request message, and
• initiate, in response to detecting a Restart Request message, a procedure for restarting the emulated mainframe IOP, wherein the restarting procedure includes,
• shutting down the emulated mainframe IOP,
• starting a new emulated mainframe IOP, and
• resetting the contents of the home location.

A computer readable medium having instructions stored thereon which, when executed by a processor, carry out a method for restarting an emulated mainframe input/output processor (IOP), the instructions comprising:

• polling a memory home location for a Restart Request message;
• and
• initiating a rescue mechanism in response to detecting a Restart Request message in the memory home location,
• wherein initiating the rescue mechanism comprises,
• instructions for shutting down the emulated mainframe IOP within a commodity computer hosting the emulated mainframe IOP,
• instructions for starting a new emulated mainframe IOP within the commodity computer hosting the emulated mainframe IOP, and
• instructions for resetting the contents of the memory home location.