The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 01, 1997
Filed:
Jan. 19, 1995
Randy J Matthews, Boise, ID (US);
Wade A Dolphin, Boise, ID (US);
Hewlett-Packard Company, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
A multi-tasking, multi-initiator computing system includes an interfacing bus, at least one storage disk array connected to the interfacing bus, and multiple initiators connected to the interfacing bus to request I/O processes to be performed by the storage disk array. A disk array controller is provided in the storage disk array to assign the I/O requests received from the initiators to one of two types of job control data structures: (1) regular job control data structures that hold the information to process and complete the I/O request, and (2) minimized job control data structures that are temporarily used when no regular job control data structures are available. The disk array controller assigns the I/O request to the minimized job control data structures only in the event that no free regular job control data structures are available to hold the information from the I/O request. Each minimized job control data structure holds a subset of the information from the I/O request that is sufficient to reinitiate the I/O request for completion when a regular job control data structure once again becomes available. A method for operating a computing system and a memory data structure are also described.