Other

Storage Technology Corporation

Aaron Dailey

Frederick G Munro

David L Trachy

Richard Defouw

Scott Allen

An automated memory cartridge system prioritizes requests for tape retrieval. The requests to transfer cartridges may be assigned a priority relating to the importance of the request. The system will recognize these requests and organize them so that higher priority requests will be executed ahead of other lower priority requests. This prioritization will be accomplished in such a manner which allows even very low priority requests to eventually be carried out.

Task prioritization for a tape storage system

An automated cartridge system optimizes the time it takes to execute a series of cartridge requests. After cartridge requests are received, the library controller calculates the approximate time it will take to execute each possible sequence of pending cartridge requests. The library controller then executes the first request in the sequence of pending requests which will take the shortest elapsed time. This series of calculations and executions continues until all requests are completed. It is another object of the present invention to carry out the motion optimization in such a manner that assures that a particular cartridge request is not put off indefinitely. Each time a hand or arm is allocated to a request, all other requests waiting for these mechanisms have their calculated execution times reduced to increase the likelihood of execution.

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Boulder, CO, United States of America

Aaron Dailey