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:
May. 21, 2002
Filed:
May. 04, 2000
Nam Nguyen, Round Rock, TX (US);
Ahmad Tawil, Round Rock, TX (US);
Dell Products, L.P., Round Rock, TX (US);
Abstract
A system and method for providing reliable access by a plurality of user systems in a computer network to data in a centralized storage system. The method includes the steps of placing all storage subunits of the centralized storage system in a default locked state wherein data stored in the storage subunits is not accessible by any user system, providing a user system with an initial key corresponding to a storage subunit, and the user system using the initial key to assign the storage subunit to itself so that no other user system can access data stored therein. When so assigned the storage subunit cannot be reassigned to another user system until the storage subunit has been placed back in the default locked state. One manner of implementing the above steps is using SCSI commands.