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. 15, 2003
Filed:
Dec. 28, 1998
Nortel Networks Limited, St. Laurent, CA;
Abstract
A high availability computing system having multiple processing elements capable of simultaneous execution of multiple software programs and seamless software upgrades is disclosed. The system comprises multiple processing elements, each processing element capable of accessing memory at processing element memory addresses; and multiple memory modules each having a plurality of alterable memory units, each memory unit identified by a system memory address within a defined address space. The system further includes a memory element interface in communication with each of the memory elements permitting alteration of the defined address space for the memory element. An address mapper is interconnected between each of the processing elements and at least one of the memory elements. The address mapper is capable of mapping a processing element memory address to a global memory address within a defined address space. Thus, the system may allocate memory addresses used by a single one of the memory elements to an address space used by only a single processing element. The system further has access ports to each of the memory elements, thus allowing the single processing element limited access to other memory modules. Conversely, other processing elements may have limited access to the single memory module. As a result, the single computing system may be divided into two logical computing systems. Software upgrades may be loaded into one system, without interrupting the other system.