Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Michael G Tricker

Andrew J Ritz

Santosh Sharad Jodh

Ellsworth Davis Walker

Chris J Guzak

Daniel J Shapiro

Brian R Meyers

Chad Magendanz

Gavin Jancke

Jonathan Thomas Grudin

John A Strange

Angel Calvo

Steven Adrian West

Guruswamy Namasivayam

Sunil Kutty

Kaushik Gurumurthy

Tim T Chao

Angel Sarmento Calvo

Embodiments of the invention provide a set of validators that can be used to determine whether an installation is operating within desired parameters and is in compliance with any requirements. The validators may be provided with a software application or release, for example, and may be run during and/or after installation to test the application operation. A set of self-healing operations may be triggered when faults are detected by the validators. This allows a software application to auto-diagnose and auto-self-heal any detected faults.

Cloud deployment infrastructure validation engine

A method and apparatus for correlating the identities of hardware devices, such as processors or memory controllers, between a local operating system and a global management entity is described. In an embodiment a fault message including a local identifier of a faulting device is received from an operating system. A global identifier of the faulting device is determined that is different from the local identifier. An appropriate replacement device is then selected based on the global identifier of the faulting device, and the selected replacement device is mapped to the faulting device.

Correlating hardware devices between local operating system and global management entity

Apparatus and methods for replacing partition units are disclosed. Generic and platform-specific drivers based on a driver model that specify a plurality of callbacks are disclosed. The drivers enable the replacement of partition units without the firmware and/or software of a computing device having to be recompiled for each platform. The plurality of callbacks provide access to a plurality of functions that are safe to use when operating system services are not available. The plurality of callbacks include, but are not limited to, initialization, memory transfer, and transfer processor state callbacks. The methods use the drivers to replace partition units. Preferably, partition units are replaced using platform-specific partition unit replacement (PUR) drivers that take advantage of platform-specific capabilities.

Driver model for replacing core system hardware

A method and apparatus for correlating the identities of hardware devices, such as processors and memory controllers, between a local operating system and a global management entity is described. When the operating system detects a faulting device, the operating system generates a fault message and transmits the fault message to the global management entity. The global management entity determines the identity of the faulting device based on information contained in the fault message, selects an appropriate replacement device, changes a routing table to map to the replacement device to the identity of the faulting device, and transmits to the operating system a global identity of the replacement device. The operating system correlates the local identity of the replacement device with the global identity of the replacement device.

A method and apparatus for managing spare partition units in a partitionable computing device is disclosed. The method comprises detecting if a spare partition unit is required for addition or replacement in a local operating system and if a spare partition unit is required for addition, initiating an addition of a spare partition unit. If a spare partition unit is required for replacement, a replacement of a failing partition unit with a spare partition unit is initiated; part of the memory of the failing partition unit is passively migrated into the memory of the spare partition unit's partition; part of the memory of the failing partition unit is also actively migrated into the memory of the spare partition unit's partition; and the partitionable computing device is cleaned up. Partition units are replaced without requiring that computer-executable instructions be recompiled.

Replacing system hardware

Disclosed is a method for one computing device (the 'provider') to provide peripheral services to another device (the 'host'). A user directly runs the host. The host accesses the provider as if the provider were a set of peripheral devices attached to the host. In this way, the host and provider become, in effect, one device with the combined capabilities of both devices. The provider switches between two modes: In standalone mode, the provider acts as an individual device; upon switching to auxiliary mode, the provider provides peripheral services to the host but can still run applications and present an input/output interface to its own user. When the peripheral device provided to the host is a display screen, the host can map the provided screen into the host's own video memory, thus hiding implementation details from applications that use the screens. One device can simultaneously act as provider and host.

Method and system for providing a peripheral service to a host computing device

Growing community of inventors

Redmond, WA, United States of America

Michael G Tricker