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:
Nov. 15, 2005
Filed:
Aug. 14, 2001
Stephen H. Strange, Mountain View, CA (US);
Alan L. Rowe, San Jose, CA (US);
R. Guy Lauterbach, Penn Valley, CA (US);
Stephen H. Strange, Mountain View, CA (US);
Alan L. Rowe, San Jose, CA (US);
R. Guy Lauterbach, Penn Valley, CA (US);
Network Appliance, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Abstract
A system and method for fast ('warm') reboot of a file server is provided, which skips certain conventional boot processes when circumstances warrant, in order to reduce server downtime. In particular, time is saved by avoiding a full shutdown of the processor and memory, and by causing the firmware to refrain from a full clearance of the file server memory. Instead, the firmware accesses a retained copy of the storage operating system kernel from a reserved location in the file server memory so that an operative version of the kernel is reestablished at the appropriate address space in memory without requiring a time-consuming read of the kernel image from disk. In addition, other 'normal' (cold) reboot operations such as full memory tests, hardware checks and memory zeroing are avoided as appropriate—saving further time in the overall reboot process, while still attaining the desired reinitialization of key applications and functions.