International Business Machines Corporation

Ellen Marie Bauman

Timothy J Schimke

Jesse Paul Arroyo

Lee Anton Sendelbach

Timothy Roy Block

Thomas R Sand

Harald Pross

Christopher John Engel

Gregory Michael Nordstrom

Kaveh Naderi

Brian Eric Bakke

Robert Edward Galbraith

Mark A Johnson

Curtis Shannon Eide

William Alan Thompson

David Lee Dosch

Joseph Thomas Writz

Daniel J Larson

Daniel Paul Wetzel

Leonardo Letourneaut

Daniel Frank Moertl

Charles Scott Graham

Harvey Gene Kiel

Paul Edward Movall

Daniel Robert Lipps

Brian Gerard Holthaus

Christoper J Engel

Timothy Jerry Schimke

A method, system and computer program product are provided for detecting state and sparing of optical Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCI-Express or PCIE) cable channels attached to an IO drawer. System firmware is provided for implementing health check functions and state detection and sparing functions. One or more optical cables are connected between a host bridge and an PCIE enclosure, each optical cable includes one or more spare optical channels. An identified failed optical channel is rerouted to the spare optical channel.

Detecting and sparing of optical PCIE cable channel attached IO drawer

According to an embodiment, a system, a method, and/or a computer program product is provided to allow a choice of allocating resources of a processor host bridge (PHB) at initial setup of a computer system to a group of peripheral component interconnect express (PCI-E) slots via a PCI-E switch, or alternatively to allocate resources of the PHB directly to a single PCI-E slot. The system may include a PHB, a first switch connected to the PHB, where the first switch is a simple circuit, a second switch connected to the first switch, where the second switch is a simple circuit, a PCI-E switch connected to the first switch and connected to the second switch, and a first PCI-E slot connected to the second switch.

Combining switch slot resources

Dynamically bypassing a peripheral component interconnect (PCI) switch including preparing, during run time, a PCI host bridge for disconnection from the PCI switch, wherein the PCI host bridge is connected to a first PCI slot via the PCI switch; toggling, during run time, an electrical switch, wherein toggling the electrical switch bypasses the PCI switch and creates a direct connection between the PCI host bridge and the first PCI slot; and configuring, during run time, the PCI host bridge for the direct connection between the PCI host bridge and the first PCI slot.

Dynamically bypassing a peripheral component interconnect switch

A method, system and computer program product are provided for detecting and configuring an external input/output (IO) enclosure in a computer system. A PCIE Host Bridge (PHB) in a system unit is connected to a plurality of PCIE add-in card slots. One or more cables are connected between the PHB and the external enclosure. System firmware including detecting and configuring functions uses sideband structure for detecting a PCIE cable card and configuring the external input/output (IO) enclosure.

Detecting and configuring of external IO enclosure

A method, system and computer program product are provided for implementing health check for optical cable attached Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIE) enclosures in a computer system. System firmware is provided for implementing health check functions. One or more optical cables are connected between a host bridge and a PCIE enclosure. A PCIE link to the PCIE enclosure is reset responsive to a predefined event. After a set delay, a PCIE link health check is performed verifying PCIE link width and speed.

Implementing health check for optical cable attached PCIE enclosure

A method, system and computer program product are provided for detecting state and sparing of optical Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCI-Express or PCIE) cable channels attached to an IO drawer. System firmware is provided for implementing health check functions and state detection and sparing functions. One or more optical cables are connected between a host bridge and a PCIE enclosure, each optical cable includes one or more spare optical channels. An identified failed optical channel is rerouted to the spare optical channel.

Virtualizing a host USB adapter in a virtualized environment maintained by a hypervisor, the hypervisor administering one or more logical partitions, where virtualizing includes receiving, by the hypervisor from a logical partition via a logical USB adapter, a USB Input/Output ('I/O') request, the logical USB adapter associated with a USB device coupled to the host USB adapter; placing, by the hypervisor, a work queue element ('WQE') in a queue of a queue pair associated with the logical USB adapter; and administering, by an interface device in dependence upon the WQE, USB data communications among the logical partition and the USB device including retrieving, with direct memory access (&#x2018;DMA&#x2019;), USB data originating at the USB device from the host USB adapter into a dedicated memory region for the logical USB adapter.

Virtualizing a host USB adapter

Systems and methods to manage access to shared resources are provided. A particular method may include receiving a request to access a shared resource from a first client of a plurality of clients and determining whether the shared resource is being used. A first window credential associated with the first client may be retrieved. The first window credential may be one of a plurality of window credentials associated with the plurality of clients. The first window credential may be used to access the shared resource.

Managing access to a shared resource using client access credentials

A method, system and computer program product are provided for implementing memory migration of large system memory pages in a computer system. A large page to be migrated from a current location to a target location is converted into a plurality of smaller subpages for a processor or system page table. The migrated page is divided into first, second and third segments, each segment composed of the smaller subpages and each respective segment changes as each individual subpage is migrated. CPU and I/O accesses to respective subpages of the first segment are directed to corresponding subpages of the target page or new page. I/O accesses to respective subpages of the second segment use a dual write mode targeting corresponding subpages of both the current page and the target page. CPU and I/O accesses to the subpages of the third segment access the corresponding subpages of the current page.

Iimplementing DMA migration of large system memory areas

A method, apparatus and program product implement a failover of a communication channel in a cluster fabric that transfers a state of the communication channel between windows resident in a hardware fabric interface device. The failover is desirably implemented by updating a plurality of mappings between memory resources in a host memory and hardware resources in the fabric interface device, and typically without modifying the memory resources such that involvement of a client that utilizes the communication channel in the failover is minimized or eliminated.

Communication channel failover in a high performance computing (HPC) network

A method, computer program product and computer system for virtualizing an SAS storage adapter, so as to allow logical partitions of a computer system to share a storage device. The method, computer program product and computer system includes assigning a logical storage adapter to an operating system of each of the logical partitions; creating a mapping from each of the logical partitions to a set of logical blocks in the storage device; and configuring the logical storage adapter using a hypervisor, so that a select partition can access a select set of logical blocks that the select partition is allowed to access.

Virtualized SAS adapter with logic unit partitioning

Data communications through a host Fibre Channel adapter ('HFCA') implemented with a computer that includes two or more logical partitions, each logical partition including a separate instance of an operating system, each instance of an operating system including an instance of a low-level, switched fabric input/output ('I/O') library, including establishing, in the HFCA by instances of the I/O library in two or more logical partitions and by the hypervisor, separate logical Fibre Channel adapters (&#x2018;LFCAs&#x2019;) for at least two of the logical partitions, each LFCA including an association of an LFCA identifier with at least one range of I/O memory addresses in the address space of a logical partition and transferring, at the behest of application programs in the two or more logical partitions, data between the RAM of the logical partitions and the data storage devices through the LFCAs, the HFCA, and the Fibre Channel fabric.

Growing community of inventors

Rochester, MN, United States of America

Ellen Marie Bauman