Oracle International Corporation

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Gregory Charles Onufer

John Johnson

Paul Joseph Jordan

Ali Vahidsafa

James Ray Lewis

John R Feehrer

Patrick Stabile

Russell N Mirov

Ashley N Saulsbury

David J Redman

David M Kahn

Hugh R Kurth

Tayfun Kocaoglu

Srinivasan Subramanian

Richard A Zatorski

Carl F Humphreys

Srinivasan Sabramanian

An apparatus is disclosed in which the apparatus may include a plurality of cores, including a first core, a second core and a third core, and circuitry coupled to the first core. The first core may be configured to process a plurality of instructions. The circuitry may be may be configured to detect that the first core stopped committing a subset of the plurality of instructions, and to send an indication to the second core that the first core stopped committing the subset. The second core may be configured to disable the first core from further processing instructions of the subset responsive to receiving the indication, and to copy data from the first core to a third core responsive to disabling the first core. The third core may be configured to resume processing the subset dependent upon the data.

Method for migrating CPU state from an inoperable core to a spare core

A method and apparatus for performing memory access operations during a memory relocation in a computing system are disclosed. In response to initiating a relocation operation from a source region of memory to a destination region of memory, copying one or more lines of the source region to the destination region, and activating a mirror operation mode in a communication circuit coupled to one or more devices included in the computing system. In response to receiving an access request from a device, reading previously stored data from the source region, and in response to determining the access request includes a write request, storing new data included in the write request to locations in both the source and destination regions.

Input/output direct memory access during live memory relocation

The disclosed embodiments provide a system that validates message-signaled interrupts. During operation, the system receives a message-signaled interrupt from a requesting device. This message-signaled interrupt includes an interrupt vector that identifies an interrupt, and is accompanied by an identification tag that identifies the source of the interrupt. The system uses the interrupt vector to access a stored tag from a tracking mechanism that associates source devices with their assigned interrupt vector(s). The system then compares the identification tag and the stored tag to validate the message-signaled interrupt.

Validating message-signaled interrupts by tracking interrupt vectors assigned to devices

A method and apparatus for delivering a device driver to an operating system without user intervention. One or more operating systems (e.g., different operating system programs, different versions of one operating system) execute on a computer platform. During booting of an operating system a device is identified for which a driver is needed. The driver is requested from a service processor of the platform, which includes memory or storage for storing multiple device drivers (or multiple versions of one driver, for different operating systems). The driver is retrieved from the service processor's storage and delivered to the operating system.

Method and apparatus for delivering device drivers

A system maintains a copy of data stored in a first memory device in a redundant distinct second memory device. Upon detecting an uncorrectable error in the first memory device, the system then relies on the copy of the data in the second memory device. The system, once it starts relying on the data in the second memory device, may then test the first memory device to determine if the uncorrectable error was due to a physical problem or a transient event. If the first memory device is then found to be working correctly, it may, in turn, become a redundant memory device for the second memory device.

Method and apparatus for memory redundancy and recovery from uncorrectable errors

A method and system to allow user applications can access hardware platform-specific configuration information in a generic way. A platform independent framework lies on a layer that interfaces with the operating system layer. Accordingly, when a platform is changed, the operating system layer is notified of the change to facilitate informing the user of the change. This framework also has a plug-in publishing interface that is used to develop platform-specific modules to publish or export hardware configurations to other users. In another embodiment, this framework has a user interface that allows the user to make the necessary changes to the system management and hardware diagnostic tools whenever the platform is changed to ensure that the tools function correctly.

Generic interface and framework to publish and monitor platform configuration

An apparatus for firmware authentication and methods of operating the same result in software upgradability to firmware without compromising the integrity of the firmware. The apparatus for firmware authentication of a boot PROM comprises a software programmable data section having a plurality of micro-code. An authentication section having a hash generator configured to generate a data hash in response to the plurality of micro-code programmed in the software programmable data section to authorize execution of the plurality of micro-code of the data section.

Growing community of inventors

Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Gregory Charles Onufer