International Business Machines Corporation

George Edward Graffius, Iii

Peter Grimm Sutton

Mark A Boonie

Glenn W Sears, Jr

Mark A Lehrer

Leslie F Sutton

Steven Edwin Roach

Susan Anderson Pavlakis

Mark Spies

Bryan A Foley

Ronald C Cooper

Peter Lemieszewski

Changes in locking configurations are managed. A locking configuration includes one or more locking facilities and the one or more locking facilities include one or more locks. When a change in a locking configuration, either planned or unplanned, is detected, one or more of the locks are redistributed. For example, one or more of the locks affected by the change are moved from one or more of the locking facilities to one or more other locking facilities. This redistribution is independent of the location of the data associated with the one or more locks being moved. Thus, data and locks may be moved independently of one another and without affecting one another. Further, the redistribution can take place while the system is available or mostly available, thereby minimizing downtime.

Managing locks affected by planned or unplanned reconfiguration of locking facilities

In a multiprocessing system, data which is stored on an external storage media and shared by a plurality of processors is converted from an old format to a new format without bringing the multiprocessing system down. One processor at a time is provided the capability to view the data in the new format, while the other processors view the data in the old format. After all of the processors are capable of viewing the data in the new format, the data is converted from the old format to the new format and the data in the new format is stored on the external storage media. If for some reason the new format turns out to be unacceptable, procedures are also in place for falling back to the old format without disrupting system availability.

Data conversion in a multiprocessing system usable while maintaining

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Huntingdon, PA, United States of America

George Edward Graffius, Iii