International Business Machines Corporation

Cisco Technology, Inc.

Lenovo (singapore) Pte. Ltd.

Edward Stanley Suffern

James J Bozek

Jeffrey Robert Warren

John Walter Linville

James Lee Wooldridge

Brad Alan Makrucki

Kellie Francis

Howard J Locker

Daryl Carvis Cromer

Eric Richard Kern

William Joseph Piazza

Bruce Alan Smith

James William Feeney

Brandon John Ellison

Max Robert Povse

Benjamin Russell Grimes

Michihiro Okamoto

Emmanuel Lancon

Takeshi Wagatsuma

Robert William Bartoldus

Spiros Joseph Teleoglou

George Michel Abdelnour

George M Calhoun

Stephen C Maglione

Larry Wayne Reynolds

Jorge R Rodriquez

Clement Yvon Gustave Poiraud

David Charles Sips

Jillian Lynn Kaufman

Nils Peter Hansson

Power management for a virtual machine farm in which each hypervisor respectively serving each virtual machine platform in the farm is provided with an extended hypervisor function coacts with functions provided by the connection broker and the manual configuration interface of the virtual machine farm management server for managing each respective virtual machine platform to maximize the time that each platform is in the reduced power state.

Power management in a virtual machine farm at the local virtual machine platform level by a platform hypervisor extended with farm management server functions

A method and system for ensuring security and preventing intrusion in a connection between a thin client and a client blade. An encrypted keep-alive protocol is conducted between the client blade and the thin client. The client blade issues keep-alive protocol messages and monitors for keep-alive protocol acknowledgments from the thin client. If a failure in receiving a keep-alive protocol acknowledgment from the thin client is detected and the failure is not due to a momentary glitch in the keep-alive protocol, then a command is generated to enter the client blade in a particular state (e.g., a hard power off state). The command is based on a 'privilege mask' which includes code that specifies an action to be performed (i.e., enter a particular state) by the client blade. Based on the action performed by the client blade, the client blade provides different levels of security or protection against intrusion.

Ensuring security of connection between thin client and client blade

A method, apparatus and program product for automatically detecting the configuration of a hardware platform, generating the communications necessary to request the correct OS for the platform, authenticating the request at a remote server, detecting the image class based on a class node policy, and downloading the correct OS to the requesting platform while avoiding any necessity of inventorying or entering node-specific information such as a MAC (Media Access Control) address or UUID (Universally Unique Identifier).

Method, apparatus and program product for provisioning a computer system

Power management in a virtual machine environment that includes at least one virtual machine platform providing a plurality of virtual machines, and a plurality of separate (user) computers, each connected to a respective one of the virtual machines in a typical virtual machine distribution environment. There is also provided a function, independent of the connections of the user computers to the virtual machines, for determining if each of said computers connected to the virtual machines is in an active state together with a function for switching the virtual machine platform into a reduced power consumption state in the platform when all of the computers connected to virtual machines are in a non-active state.

Power management to maximize reduced power state for virtual machine platforms

A method of managing power consumption by a plurality of blade servers within a processing system. The speed of at least one of the plurality of blade servers is reduced in response to the processing system reaching a power or thermal threshold. At least one of the plurality of blade servers is identified as not being critical to maintain in a working state and the critical blade server is put in a sleep state. A satellite management controller may control blade server power consumption and heat generation in various ways that combine processor speed-stepping and control of processor sleep states. Known sleep states save more power than speed-stepping by turning off the processor and/or volatile memory. The processor speed and sleep-states of at least one non-critical blade server, and optionally the processor speed of a critical processor, may be changed in order to control the power consumption below a power threshold or control the temperature below a thermal threshold.

Power control of servers using advanced configuration and power interface (ACPI) states

A system and method automatically scale the resolution of video output of a selected workstation blade so that an administrator can view the video output by the selected workstation blade in the same format as it is displayed at the user terminal associated with the selected workstation blade. The video is automatically switched from a multi-screen display to a single-screen display for both the user and the administrator so that the administrator may see the video output regardless of differences between the displays the user and the administrator each have.

Automatic adjustment of display settings for remote viewing by an administrator

A method and system for accessing a remote real communication port ('COM port') from a server blade in a server blade chassis by creating a virtual COM port in the server blade. A basic input/output system (BIOS) controller monitors an internal COM port in the server blade for communication traffic. Upon detecting the communication traffic, the BIOS controller reroutes the traffic to a virtual USB COM port created by the BIOS controller chipset. The virtual USB COM port directs the communication traffic to an internal universal serial bus (USB) device in the server blade. The USB device then forwards the traffic to an Ethernet media access controller (MAC) input/output (I/O) on a sideband channel to a remote system, which passes the communication traffic to a real COM port in the remote system.

Virtual USB communications port

A system chassis includes multiple chassis bays configured for receiving either of a single, conventional server blade or an adapter blade. The adapter blade can selectively secure a plurality of compact blades, such as a blade PC. The adapter blade includes a blade latch for selectively releasing the adapter blade from the chassis bay, wherein the presence of a compact blade enclosure within any of the plurality of adapter bays of the adapter blade prevents the latch from being operable to release the adapter blade. The compact blade preferably includes a latch disposed along an upper or lower edge of the blade for selectively releasing the compact blade enclosure from the adapter bay. The adapter blade preferably also includes an interposer disposed for electronically communicating each compact blade with a server interface a separate node upon securing a compact blade within any of the adapter bays.

Adapter blade for a blade server system chassis

Data bandwidth on a congested link of a Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection (CSMA/CD) network, is controlled by a Pause MAC Frame which carries information identifying devices causing the problem on the link. The Recipient of the Pause MAC Frame can use the information to deactivate selected devices on the congested link. As a consequence, the data bandwidth is reduced without shutting down the link.

Flow control mechanism

A system, method, and program for establishing modem communication between a master computer system and a plurality of slave computer systems coupled to a common serial communication channel are disclosed. An unique identification number (UIN) is assigned to each slave computer system. The slave system modems are initialized to a 'receive mode.' The master computer system directs a session request to the slave computer systems through the common serial communication channel. All slave computer systems receive and respond to the session request by changing each of the modems to the 'answer mode.' After all the slave computer systems respond, the master computer system requests communication with a particular slave computer system among the plurality of slave computer systems. The master computer system uses the UIN to establish communication with the particular slave computer system by sending a request from the master computer system specifying the UIN of the particular slave computer system. After the master computer system requests communication with the particular slave computer system, communication is maintained between the master computer system and only the particular slave computer system by maintaining the modem for the particular slave computer system in the &#x201c;answer mode&#x201d; and switching the modems for all other slave computer systems to the &#x201c;receive mode.&#x201d; After communication is established between the master computer system and the particular slave computer system, the master computer system controls the particular slave computer system by issuing commands.

System, method, and program for establishing modem communication between a master computer system and a plurality of slave computer systems through a common serial communication channel

A device that automatically configures the high speed (100 Mbps) port of a switch both physically and logically is provided. For physical configuration, the device determines the transmit pair conductor and the receive pair conductor interconnecting a switch port and Data Terminal Equipment (DTE). The switch port can be termed &ldquo;Primary&rdquo; while the connected DTE is termed &ldquo;Secondary&rdquo; or vice versa. For logical configurations, the device makes the determination. The device includes a switching relay, a controller and impedance matching transformers. The controller switches the connections between the relay and the transformer so that the impedance is substantially constant even though the output from the high speed port is feeding different resistive transmission lines.

High speed token ring port configuror

A method and system for adjusting a message preamble on a shared bus, wherein the message preamble includes N synchronization characters, and each of the synchronization characters is separated in time by a random delay interval. First, an activity status is determined for the shared bus in terms of the number of stations that are currently active on the bus. The number of synchronization characters is then adjusted according to the bus activity status. The activity status is also utilized as a dynamic adjustment parameter for the random delay interval that includes a fixed delay term, D, added to a randomly determined delay increment, d. In this manner the message preamble specification is optimized according to real-time network demands, such that latency and data collisions are minimized.

Dynamic preamble configuration on a shared bus

A method and apparatus for use where an incoming high speed data stream is first divided into N lower bandwidth channels and is then transmitted through the network to a receiver where it arrives with varying delays depending on the physical characteristics of the network. The high speed data stream is reconstructed by determining the different geographical delay parameters among the lower speed channels, by adjusting the transmission delays by alignment circuitry, and then by combining the lower speed signals into one high bandwidth channel. When one of the lower speed channels fails, the bandwidth is automatically re-adjusted using the remaining N&minus;1 lines. When the failed channel is restored to an acceptable level of service, the communication protocol automatically re-adjusts the bandwidth to the full N channels. When the network indicates the loss of a line, the multiplexers at both ends of the link automatically compensate for the loss without any message exchange. When the line is restored, the multiplexers at both ends of the link automatically re-adjust the bandwidth.

System and method for recovering and restoring lost data in a N-channel coherent data transmission system

A data buffer management system and method between two different types of systems, The data buffer management system employs circular buffer chaining, wherein multiple state machines service buffer updates from multiple sources, dual buffer structures are maintained, mapping is provided between two different control block structures, and full duplex operation is supported. The data buffer management system manages use of a data buffer memory. A transmit operation is performed by transferring and storing data from one of the two different systems to the data buffer memory The data in the data buffer memory is converted and read by another of the two different systems. A receive operation is performed by transferring and storing data from the other of the two different systems to the data buffer memory.

Data buffer management between two different systems

Flow control is implemented at a given node in a network of LAN switches by having the node monitor the occupancy levels of buffers or queues. When a buffer is found to be occupied or filled beyond a predetermined threshold level, a pause command is generated for the source currently supplying traffic to the buffer. A pause time PT is calculated using an equation which takes into account: the transmission rate of the identified source, the transmission rate of the output link servicing the congested buffer and queue length that can be occupied without a congestion condition being declared. To reduce the chance that queue lengths will &ldquo;oscillate&rdquo; about their threshold point due to multiple sources resuming transmission at the same time, each calculated pause time is adjusted to a randomly selected value PT(ran) falling within a range of PT&plusmn;kPT where k may be on the order of fifty percent.

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Chapel Hill, NC, United States of America

Edward Stanley Suffern