Method and apparatus for optimizing the handling of synchronous requests to a coupling facility in a sysplex configuration
US5923890A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Jul 30, 1997 |
| Grant date | Jul 13, 1999 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Jul 30, 2017 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06F9/5077
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A method and apparatus for optimizing the handling of a synchronous request issued from a system partition of a logically partitioned machine to a selected coupling facility. The coupling facility may be either an internal coupling facility residing in a separate logical partition or an external coupling facility residing on a separate physical machine; an internal coupling facility in turn runs on processors that are either dedicated to the coupling facility or shared with another logical partition. A logical partition manager maintains state information for each system partition indicating whether the partition is connected to an internal coupling facility. To ascertain the shared or non-shared status of a particular coupling facility to which it is connected, a system partition issues a Read Facility Parameters (RFP) command to the target facility, which responds with a message response block (MRB) containing a bit that is 1 if it uses dedicated processors and 0 if it uses shared processors. The system partition stores this information in an entry for the coupling facility kept in a shared/dedicated attribute table maintained by the partition. Each time the system partition issu…
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.