Stratus Technologies Bermuda Ltd.

Stratus Technologies Ireland Ltd.

Andrew Alden

Jeffrey S Somers

Craig Durand Keefer

John W Edwards, Jr

Mark Tetreault

John Rogers MacLeod

Michael W Kement

John M Chaves

John Edwards

Michael Egan

Chester W Pawlowski

Christopher Cotton

Mohsen Dolaty

Robert E Nelvin

Christopher D Cotton

Chester Pawlowski

John Chaves

In part, the disclosure relates to a fault tolerant system. The system may include one or more shared memory complexes, each memory complex comprising a group of M computer-readable memory storage devices; one or more cache coherent switches comprising two or more host ports and one or more downstream device ports, the cache coherent switch in electrical communication with the one or more shared memory storage device; a first management processor in electrical communication with the cache coherent switch; a first compute node comprising a first processor and a first cache, the first compute node in electrical communication with the one or more cache coherent switches and the one or more shared memory complexes; a second compute node comprising a second processor and a second cache, the second compute node in electrical communication with the one or more cache coherent switches and the one or more shared memory complexes.

Fault tolerant systems and methods using shared memory configurations

A fault tolerant computer system and method are disclosed. The system may include a plurality of CPU nodes, each including: a processor and a memory; at least two IO domains, wherein at least one of the IO domains is designated an active IO domain performing communication functions for the active CPU nodes; and a switching fabric connecting each CPU node to each IO domain. One CPU node is designated a standby CPU node and the remainder are designated as active CPU nodes. If a failure, a beginning of a failure, or a predicted failure occurs in an active node, the state and memory of the active CPU node are transferred to the standby CPU node which becomes the new active CPU node. If a failure occurs in an active IO domain, the communication functions performed by the failing active IO domain are transferred to the other IO domain.

High reliability fault tolerant computer architecture

The present invention relates to a method and system for transferring portions of a memory block. A first data mover is configured with a first start address corresponding to a first portion of a source memory block. A second data mover is configured with a second start address corresponding to a second portion of the source memory block sized differently from the first portion. The first portion of the source memory block is transferred by the first data mover and the second portion of the source memory block is transferred by the second data mover.

Method and apparatus for efficiently moving portions of a memory block

The inventive system essentially hides redundant paths to the peripheral devices from the operating system, by reporting a single &ldquo;virtual&rdquo; path to the peripheral busses over PCI bus . The virtual path includes at least a virtual peripheral bus controller and a virtual video controller. The system also tells the operating system that the real controllers are on another PCI bus on an opposite side of a PCI-to-PCI bridge connected also to PCI bus . An I/O system manager selects one of the actual paths, which may, but need not, be connected to PCI bus , to handle communications with the peripheral devices. The I/O system manager maintains the controllers on the unselected path in an off-line or standby mode, in case of a failure of one or more of the controllers on the selected path. If a failure occurs, the I/O system manager performs a fail-over operation to change the selection of controllers, and the peripheral devices continue to operate in the same manner on the peripheral busses. The operating system does not respond to the controller failure by declaring a system failure, however, because the operating system continues to look to the virtual path, with its virtual controllers, as a valid path to the peripheral devices. The system also allows hot swapping of PCI bridges, through FET isolation of the unselected controllers. The devices on the PCI bus and the peripheral busses may also be hot swapped through selective FET isolation.

System and method for operating a system with redundant peripheral bus controllers

Growing community of inventors

Leominster, MA, United States of America

Andrew Alden