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. 28, 2017
Filed:
Apr. 23, 2012
Mark Shaw, Sammamish, WA (US);
Wilson V. VU, Bellevue, WA (US);
Mark Shaw, Sammamish, WA (US);
Wilson V. Vu, Bellevue, WA (US);
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA (US);
Abstract
In computing scenarios involving multiple computational units, an enclosure (e.g., a rack or server cabinet) may store the units and provide resources such as shared power and network connectivity. Additionally, the components of the units may communicate through a Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) bus, but many such enclosures provide little or no integration with the SAS buses, thus entailing extensive SCSI cabling. Presented herein are architectures for enclosures presenting a set of slots for trays storing respective computing blades, where such trays include SAS connectors that connect directly (i.e., without cabling) with connectors on a midplane that interconnects the blades into a SAS bus featuring at least one integrated SAS expander. Additional architectural variations involve providing SAS expander on one or both of the midplane and the blades; grouping blades into subsets having distinct SAS buses; and interconnecting the SAS buses and expanders of multiple midplanes in the enclosure.