International Business Machines Corporation

Douglas Michael Boecker

Stephan Otis Broyles

Hemlata Nellimarla

Brent William Jacobs

Alwood Patrick Williams, Iii

Nathan D Miller

Todd Jon Rosedahl

Scott Allen Liebl

Diane Lacey Knipfer

Michael Anton Barenys

Matthew Scott Spinler

Shaun Allan Wetzstein

Gaurav Kakkar

Christopher L Bostic

Gregory Michael Nordstrom

Paul Phong Nguyen

Patrick Kevin Egan

Christopher Landon Wood

Joseph Edward Bolan

Patrick Leo Caporale

Joel Gerard Goodwin

Christopher Harry Austen

Jinu Joy Thomas

Priti Bavaria

Andreas Arnez

Santosh Puranik

Thomas Joseph Warne

Paul Henry Prahl, Jr

Jeffrey Scot Rotter

Garth Wade Tschetter

Brent Ray DenHartog

An approach is provided for preventing access to mis=plugged devices by a service processor (SP). The SP retrieves an expected device identifier of a device associated with a hot-plug event. The hot-plug event was received in response to the device being connected to a selected port of a service processor, and the port is one many ports included in the SP. The SP sends a request for a device identifier via the port and actual device identifier is received from the device. The device is validated by comparing the expected device identifier with the actual device identifier. If the identifiers match, a link between the SP and the device is maintained. On the other hand, if the identifiers do not match, the link between the SP and the device is terminated or otherwise inhibited.

Preventing access to misplugged devices by a service processor

Fault isolation for a computer system having multiple FRUs in an FSI chain uses logic embedded in a device driver to determine first failure data and a logical error identifier. The logical error identifier represents a hardware logical area of the fault. The fault is then mapped to a segment of the system based on a self-describing system model which includes FRU boundary relationships for the devices. Operation of the device driver is carried out by a flexible service processor. The device driver uses the first failure data to identify a link at a failure point corresponding to the fault and determine a failure type at the link, then maps the link and the failure type to the logical error identifier. After identifying the segment, the device driver can generate a list of callouts of the field replaceable units associated with the segment which require replacement.

Device driver error isolation on devices wired via FSI chained interface

A system and method are directed towards a pseudo multi-master operation on a serial bus. The pseudo multi-master operation allows multiple devices without standard multi-master functionality to operate on the serial bus as masters. In a disclosed example, the serial bus is an Inter-Integrated Circuit (I2C) bus, which is isolated when an adapter card requires access to the I2C bus, such as to update vital product data (VPD) to a memory device, and to cache the updated VPD to a chassis management module.

Pseudo multi-master I2C operation in a blade server chassis

A method for maintaining vital product data (VPD) of each field replaceable unit (FRUs) in a computer system, the computer system including a first FRU and a second FRU operatively coupled with the first FRU. The method includes calculating a parity for the VPD of the second FRU, and upon detecting a failure of the second FRU, regenerating the VPD for the failed second FRU using the parity.

Parity-based vital product data backup

A method for maintaining vital product data (VPD) contained in an EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory) on a field replaceable unit (FRU) of a computer system that has a cache. The method includes maintaining a copy of the VPD in the cache, retrieving the copy of the VPD from the cache upon receiving a read request of the VPD, and, upon receiving a write request to write data to the VPD, writing the data to the copy of the VPD, determining whether the VPD in the EEPROM is in synchronization with the copy of the VPD in the cache, and, if the VPD and the copy of the VPD are in synchronization, writing the data to the EEPROM.

Recovering failed writes to vital product data devices

Selectively recollecting vital product data during an initial program load at data processing system power on is provided. In response to receiving an input to power on a data processing system, a resource location code array table is accessed within a set of selected tables for the data processing system based on machine type. The selected set of tables is located in firmware within a service processor. An entry for a resource in the resource location code array table is read to determine whether the entry includes a no recollect tag. Then, in response to determining that the entry for the resource in the resource location code array table does include a no recollect tag, vital product data for the resource is not recollected during the initial program load.

Vital product data collection during pre-standby and system initial program load

A method for determining configuration information to be reported comprises accessing a table corresponding to a configuration resource associated with the configuration information, wherein the table comprises an entry for each hardware configuration definition to be built for the configuration resource, identifying a seed value in the table corresponding to the configuration resource, and modifying the seed value based on a result of processing each entry indicated by the table.

Hardware configuration information system, method, and computer program product

A mechanism is provided for locking an end device for the period of time that the device is needed, thus disabling access by any other application or process. Having the device locked, rather than the bus, allows other applications to use the bus to access other devices at the same time. This is achieved by providing a virtual bus arbitration, which arbitrates applications' use of the physical bus. The virtual bus arbitration algorithms allow bus operations from different applications to overlap on the physical bus as long as their target devices and associated bus locks are on different end devices.

Device address locking to facilitate optimum usage of the industry standard IIC bus

A method, apparatus, and computer instructions for transferring data from a master to a set of applications executing on a slave. Data is received from a master at a device driver in the slave. The data is parsed for an identifier by a virtual hub in the slave, wherein the identifier is associated with the data by the master. The data is sent to an application within the set of applications based on the identifier.

Method and apparatus for transferring data to virtual devices behind a bus expander

Combinations of clock frequencies, voltages, and currents at which a processor operates normally are determined. These combinations are stored to a component on which the processor is installed. Voltage identifiers are stored to a computer system in which the component is installed. The voltage identifiers are associated with combinations of the voltages and currents. A type of the computer system is also stored to the component. A first clock frequency at which the processor operates is determined that is assigned to the type of the computer system. A first voltage and a first current are selected that are assigned to the first clock frequency. A first voltage identifier is found that is assigned to the combination of the first voltage and first current, and the first voltage identifier is sent to a voltage regulator, which supplies voltage to the processor.

Supplying combinations of clock frequency, voltage, and current to processors

A method for coupling a collection of master devices on an Inter-Integrated Circuit (IIC) bus, where the collection of master devices includes at least one resident master device, generating a periodic, fixed interval tenure on the IIC bus, synchronizing at least one additional master device with the periodic, fixed interval tenure to enable the at least one additional master device to communicate on the IIC bus, and tuning a period value corresponding to a frequency of the periodic, fixed interval tenure to optimize the synchronizing, wherein the tuning further includes adjusting the period value to vary the frequency of the periodic, fixed interval tenure to balance between available IIC bus bandwidth and synchronization of the at least one additional master device.

Dynamically adding additional masters onto multi-mastered IIC buses with tunable performance

A method, apparatus, and computer instructions for managing requests for data by processes in a data processing system. Requests for data from the processes in slave mode are tracked. Data received by a device driver is stored, wherein the data may originate from multiple masters. The data is sent to the processes, wherein the device driver is not required to handle requests for the processes in slave mode.

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Rochester, MN, United States of America

Douglas Michael Boecker