International Business Machines Corporation

Oracle International Corporation

Daniel H Bax

Richard A Lary

Thomas D Lovett

Nakul Pratap Saraiya

Sharad Mehrotra

Geoffrey H Hanson

Russell M Clapp

Allen Hirashiki

Shyam Mittur

William Jackson Bibb, Jr

Tom Gourley

A Cost-Reduced Enterprise Server (CRES) system includes a flexible resource-efficient server having a plurality of Processor Memory Boards (PMBs) coupled to an Input/Output Module (IOM). The IOM provides all networking and storage interfaces for the server. The IOM is implemented as a field-replaceable pluggable module, and thus all Input/Output (I/O) capabilities or resources of a CRES system may be upgraded via replacement of the IOM. Each PMB is dividable into a pair of Symmetric MultiProcessor (SMP) complexes, and each complex is coupled to a respective portion of the I/O resources provided by the IOM. Each portion of the IOM provides a pair of I/O daughter-module connectors compatible with standard I/O interfaces, such as Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI)-X and PCI-Express. One or more CRES systems may be coupled to one or more Enterprise Server (ES) systems to form a multi-chassis server managed collectively as one or more provisioned servers.

Fabric-backplane enterprise servers with pluggable I/O sub-system

The aggregation of hardware events in multi-node systems is disclosed. An event occurring at a remote node is forwarded to a primary node, by firmware of the remote node writing to a first register of the primary node. The event is propagated from the first register of the primary node to a second register node. In automatic response, an interrupt is generated at the primary node. An interrupt handler of the primary node, in response to generation of the interrupt, then invokes code at the primary node to handle the event occurring at the remote node.

Aggregation of hardware events in multi-node systems

Non-volatile memory access, such as firmware access by a service processor, is disclosed. The service processor asserts a controller signal to select either a first non-volatile memory, or a second non-volatile memory. The first non-volatile memory is located behind a first bridge controller and is otherwise accessible by the service processor. The second non-volatile memory is located behind a second bridge controller and is otherwise accessible only by a processor other than the service processor. The service processor then access the selected non-volatile memory, via a bus communicatively coupled to both the non-volatile memories.

Service processor access of non-volatile memory

A multi processor computer system includes processors in processor receptacles , and voltage modules and voltage module receptacle . The system accepts both direct voltage processors powered directly from the system power plane, and regulated voltage processors which require a voltage regulator . The regulated voltage processors require the voltage regulator while the direct voltage processors cannot operate with a voltage regulator. Voltage module control circuit tests and compares processor type signals from the processor receptacles and voltage module type signals from the voltage module receptacles, and produces a voltage validation signal which indicates the presence of a mismatch between any of the processors and its respective voltage module. The voltage validation signal modifies the conventional processor presence signal from the processor receptacles if a mismatch exists, preventing the system from being powered on.

Voltage protection for computer processors

Growing community of inventors

Portland, OR, United States of America

Daniel H Bax