International Business Machines Corporation

Jeffrey Jay Scheel

William Joseph Armstrong

Naresh Nayar

Steven Jay Munroe

Troy David Armstrong

David Charles Boutcher

Raymond Keith Harney

Thomas R Sand

Kenneth Charles Vossen

Michael Joseph Corrigan

Lynn Allen McMahon

Stephanie Maria Forsman

Mark Gregory Manges

Dennis James Schmidt

Craig Alden Wilcox

Andy Wottreng

Erik Tkal

An apparatus, program product and method of managing a software license on a computer on a thread-by-thread bases, e.g., within a scheduler and dispatcher. A software license resource is associated with an execution thread of a task or process. The execution thread is selectively dispatched for execution based upon a license provision defined by the software license resource.

Thread-based software license management

Embodiments of the invention provide a means for verifying that a person using a bank card at a point-of-sale merchant location is in fact a person authorized to use the bank card. In one embodiment of the invention, verification may involve communicating with the mobile deviceassociated with the person authorized to use the bank card. The person authorized to use the bank card may be required to send verification data to the bank card verification system via the mobile device to confirm a purchase. The bank card verification system may not authorize the purchase if the proper verification data is not received from the mobile device. In another embodiment, the bank card verification system may be configured to determine a proximity of the mobile device to the merchant point-of-sale location to verify the purchase.

Real-time security verification for banking cards

A processor allocation mechanism for a logically partitionable computer system allows an administrator to specify processing capability allocable to each partition as an equivalent number of processors, where the processing capability may be specified as a non-integer value. This processing capability value is unaffected by changes to the processing capability values of other partitions. The administrator may designate multiple sets of processors, assigning each physical processor of the system to a respective processor set. Each logical partition is constrained to execute in an assigned processor set, which may be shared by more than one partition. Preferably, the administrator may designate a logical partition as either capped, meaning that a partition can not use excess idle capacity of the processors, or uncapped, meaning that it can.

Method and apparatus for allocating processor resources in a logically partitioned computer system

Configuring processors in a target system includes' prompting a user to select workload units to use in the configuration, prompting the user to input a quantity of processing power required in terms of partition workload capacity required, obtaining a system work capacity for the target system in the appropriate units from a look-up table, and calculating the number of partition processors. The number of partition processors equals the total number of system processors, times the partition workload capacity divided by the system work capacity. The calculated number of partition processors is tested to see if it is within a predetermined percentage of the next full processor increment. If within the predetermined percentage, then using dedicated processors is recommended, otherwise using shared processors is recommended. The calculated number of partition processors and the recommended use of shared or dedicated processors is displayed to the user for validation or changing of the values. After validation, the processors are configured according to the settings determined by the routine.

Technique for configuring processors in system with logical partitions

An apparatus and method for monitoring the state of a computer system running multiple operating systems shared by a partition manager is provided. A dedicated service processor monitors the individual run state condition of a plurality of processors running a plurality of operating systems. The service processor executes a routine to poll a memory location in each processor in the system to determine if the processor has entered an error loop with interrupts disabled. If any one of the plurality of processors are in an error loop, the service processor executes a routine to send a non-maskable interrupt to the looped processor so that the partition manager may regain control of the processor.

Method and apparatus to monitor the run state of a multi-partitioned computer system

A partition manager for managing logical partitions in a computer system includes hooks to low-level operating system code in one of the logical partitions. By using the operating system code to manage the resources of a computer system, any changes that are made to the operating system are automatically reflected in the function of the partition manager. In addition, low-level functions of operating systems, which are often well-debugged and tested, can be used when generating a new partition manager, greatly simplifying the time and reducing the cost of producing a partition manager.

Logical partition manager and method

A partitioner for creating logical partitions allows a user to specify maximum interactive performance in one partition independently of maximum interactive performance of other partitions to arrive at logical partitions that may be much different than the maximum overall interactive performance percentage of the computer system itself. First, the maximum interactive performance for a computer system is specified, and resources are allocated accordingly. Next, logical partitions may be created, which initially reflect the maximum interactive performance for the computer system as a whole. Finally, the maximum interactive performance can be specified for a partition independently of the interactive performance in other partitions. In this manner a computer system that is configured as a server system with low interactive and high batch performance can have two different partitions, one that has very low interactive performance and the other that balances interactive and batch processing. In this manner two partitions that have greatly different performance attributes can be defined within the limitations of the specified interactive and batch performance for the computer system as a whole.

Apparatus and method for specifying maximum interactive performance in a logical partition of a computer system independently from the maximum interactive performance in other partitions

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Rochester, MN, United States of America

Jeffrey Jay Scheel