Oracle International Corporation

Oracle America, Inc.

David Rudy

Robert J Hueston

George Kechriotis

Paul Mitchell

Scott Cooke

James Gemmell

Patrick O'Grady

Michael E Poh

Utilities (e.g., systems, methods, etc.) that make use of a secure input/output (I/O) channel between system firmware (e.g., BIOS) and the SP to allow the BIOS to securely send data (e.g., error data) for secure consumption by the SP while preventing or limiting other sources from sending falsified data or the like the SP. The secure I/O channel includes interface hardware (e.g., Field-programmable gate array (FPGA)) that is configured to be unlocked by the BIOS using a security key received from a key generator over a separate security channel. After such data is securely sent to the interface hardware, the BIOS may then pass error interrupt(s) to the OS for performing of any necessary recovery actions. At any appropriate time, the SP may read or consume error data from the memory register of the interface hardware and perform any appropriate diagnoses and/or handling of the error data.

Secure forking of error telemetry data to independent processing units

Utilities for use in actively detecting the occurrence of bad blocks in NAND flash storage devices and diagnosing the devices as faulty at some point before complete failure of the devices (e.g., before a number of allowable bad blocks has been reached) to allow a corresponding service processor to continue to write to available blocks for a period of time until a replacement NAND flash device can be identified. The utilities may also be utilized to predict the future occurrence of bad blocks in NAND flash devices, such as during the 'burn-in' process of the devices (e.g., which tests the quality of the NAND flash device before being placed into service to weed out devices with defects).

Bad block detection and predictive analytics in NAND flash storage devices

A method for accurately tracking fault status in a computer system. The method includes storing a prior state for a sensor associated with a component of the computer system and receiving a sensor reading. When the prior state indicates the sensor was unavailable or unreadable such as when the component was removed, the method includes resending or re-emitting a faulty event to the fault diagnosing module, e.g., after reinsertion of the component in the computer system while it is still faulty. The method may include, prior to the triggering of the resending of the faulty event, determining that the sensor is in a non-nominal state. The method may also include storing in the data storage a definition of a nominal state for the sensor such that the determining the sensor is in the non-nominal state includes comparing one or more sensor readings with the nominal state definition.

Accurate fault status tracking of variable access sensors

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Stoneham, MA, United States of America

David Rudy