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:
Mar. 13, 2007
Filed:
Apr. 23, 2003
Douglas W. Coatney, Cupertino, CA (US);
Scott D. Gillette, San Jose, CA (US);
Douglas W. Coatney, Cupertino, CA (US);
Scott D. Gillette, San Jose, CA (US);
Network Appliance, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Abstract
A system and method for the reliable firmware update of a disk connected to a fibre channel loop fabric allows the specified filers and other predetermined system devices connected to the fabric to be made aware of a firmware download to the target disk without need of a system broadcast message, and while avoiding an alert or error condition such as those encountered through an FC-AL reset request. The target disk returns a special downloading firmware reject code embedded in a low-level protocol that remains operative during a firmware download. This reject code is recognized by an accessing system device as indicating that the disk is currently downloading updated firmware. In this manner, having recognized the code, the system device holds any I/O operations with respect to the target disk for a given delay time. Thus, the system device does not misinterpret the unavailability of the disk as a failure, leading to an unwanted system-wide FC-AL reset state. In one embodiment, the delay time can be approximately sixty seconds and the accessing device can poll the disk after each delay time until normal operation is restored and the reject request is no longer issued. At that time, full access to the disk is restored.