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US 6,473,857 B1Granted
Centralized boot
AssigneeDell Products L.P.
InventorsMichael G. Panas, Alastair L. Taylor
Life of this patent
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AssigneeDell Products L.P.
InventorsMichael G. Panas, Alastair L. Taylor
Estimating the term…
The present invention provides a method for centralized and managed loading of boot images into one or more processors that are part of a file server for a mass storage system. In a computer system having at least one first controller, at least one input output processor (IOP), a first bus and a second bus, the present invention includes the steps of detecting readiness of the IOP to load a boot image, identifying across the first bus a location where the boot image will be loaded and loading the boot image across the second bus. The first controller may determine which of a plurality of boot images should be loaded. The first controller and the IOP may each have first and second processors, with communication between the first processors being across the first bus and boot images being accessed by the second processors across the second bus. On the IOP, the first processor may control power to the second processor and may monitor the status of the second processor, reporting across the first bus to the first controller's first processor regarding the status of the IOP's second processor. The boot image may be copied to memory local to the IOP's second processor or it may be made available across the second bus. By the method of this invention, the boot image supplied may be adapted to normal, diagnostic, crash dump or other purposes. The progress of IOP booting is tracked and monitored.
A method for booting processors in a computer system, the computer system including at least one first controller, at least one input output processor (IOP), a first bus and a second bus, including the steps of:
A method for booting processors in a computer system, the computer system including at least one first controller, at least one input output processor (IOP), a first bus and a second bus, the first controller and the IOP having a first processor coupled to the first bus and a second processor coupled to both the first processor and the second bus, including the steps of:
A method for booting processors in a computer system, the computer system including at least one first controller, at least one input output processor (IOP), a first bus and a second bus, including the steps of:
A method for booting processors in a computer system, the computer system including at least one first controller, at least one input output processor (IOP), a first bus and a second bus, the first controller and the IOP having a first processor coupled to the first bus and a second processor coupled to both the first processor and the second bus, including the steps of:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.