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US 8,146,089 B2Granted
Sharing resources of a partitioned system
AssigneeIntel Corporation
InventorJohn I. Garney
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
In one embodiment, the present invention includes a method for allocating at least one dedicated core and at least one shareable core to a first partition of a system, where the cores are owned by the first partition. During operation, the shareable core(s) may be made dynamically available for use in one or more other partitions of the system, while the first partition retains ownership of the shared core(s). Other embodiments are described and claimed.
Claims14
A method comprising:
- allocating at least one dedicated core and at least one shareable core to a first partition of a multiprocessor system that is soft partitioned, wherein the at least one dedicated core and the at least one shareable core are owned by the first partition, and allocating the at least one shareable core includes identifying the at least one shareable core in a management interface of a management partition corresponding to another dedicated core coupled to the first partition and a second partition of the multiprocessor system;
- storing a public state of the first partition in a storage of the first partition;
- storing a private state of the first partition in a first save area of the management interface, the private state of the first partition including core state information not visible to an operating system (OS) of the first partition;
- loading a private state of the second partition stored in a second save area of the management interface into the at least one shareable core during a leasing of the at least one shareable core to the second partition, the private state of the second partition including core state information not visible to an operating system (OS) of the second partition;
- loading a public state of the second partition stored in the second partition into the at least one shareable core during the leasing;
- and
- dynamically using the at least one shareable core in the second partition of the system.
4 more elements
An apparatus comprising:
- a first partition having ownership of a plurality of cores, wherein at least one core of the plurality of cores is a dedicated core of the first partition and at least one other core of the plurality of cores is a leasable core usable by the first partition or a second partition, wherein the first partition includes a storage to store visible state information of the leasable core if the leasable core is made available for use by the second partition;
- and
- an interface of a management partition implemented on a dedicated core coupled to the first partition and the second partition to store private state information including core state information of the leasable core for the first partition if the leasable core is made available for use by the second partition before the leasable core is made available for use by the second partition, the private state information of the leasable core not visible to operating systems of the first partition or the second partition.
A system comprising:
- a plurality of processors to be partitioned according to soft partitioning, wherein the system further includes:
- a first partition including a first dedicated core, a first shareable core, and a first interface to indicate availability of the first shareable core if the first shareable core is made available for sharing, wherein the first partition includes a first storage to store a public state of the first shareable core with respect to the first partition if the first shareable core is made available for sharing;
- a second partition including a second interface to indicate availability of the first shareable core for use by the second partition if the first shareable core is made available for sharing;
- a controller including a dedicated core and coupled to the first partition and the second partition, the controller to store in first and second save areas of a storage of the controller private state of the first shareable core with respect to the first partition and the second partition, the private state with respect to the first partition including core state information not visible to an operating system (OS) of the first partition and the private state with respect to the second partition including core state information not visible to an OS of the second partition, wherein the private state with respect to the first partition to be stored in the first save area during a first leasing operation and the private state with respect to the second partition to be stored in the second save area during a second leasing operation;
- and
- a dynamic random access memory (DRAM) coupled to the first partition and the second partition.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.